Pedro: I went to a pizza buffet for my stepdad's 85th birthday or something like that. Out of all the places you want to go to, Mr. Gaddy's. So we went there and...
Eric: Hmm. ⁓ damn, nice. ⁓ no, mean yeah, mean yeah, right. At it wasn't CC's. mean, I don't know. Is CC's better than Gatty's? I know.
Pedro: I don't know man. ⁓ don't know. ⁓ like it's pretty new here in Portland, right? And I haven't been so I wanted to go. Dan wanted to go. ⁓ have kids. There's games so we went. And then I want to say about 30 minutes after we ate, which was like one o'clock, I started getting clammy.
Eric: It's all trash. Mm-hmm.
Pedro: I started getting clammy. Something just wasn't s-
Eric: When you're when your insides start sweating, like you don't understand it, but like all of sudden, like you're just like, oh, what's wrong?
Pedro: I was like, why did I eat? And I was the only one. The kids ate pizza. My mom ate pizza. My stepdad ate pizza. Everybody ate pizza. But how do you know?
Eric: You're the pasta, didn't you? I know I know when that shit sits out when that shit sits out for even even just like even if you get the plate right even if you're just like you know I'm just gonna have a little taste of the pasta that's it it's done you done you done tasted the E. coli and it just went straight down it's just like party city it's like let's multiply you had the pasta
Pedro: I'm ⁓ dude. Dude, that's fucking hilarious.
Eric: Never have the pasta.
Pedro: I guess I made the mistake of having the pasta. I had the sun-dried tomato pasta.
Eric: Get pasta. That's even the worst one, because it looks like it's just been glazed over, but that's not the glaze, that's just all the germs that was just like...
Pedro: ⁓ man, that's funny, dude. My stomach hurts because I'm laughing and my stomach also hurts from the food. So I got home around 1.45 because I'm like, have to go. So let's get out of here. And then I went immediately to the restroom and then I made myself some tea and I took some meds because I also got like this frontal lobe headache. So. ⁓
Eric: ⁓ yeah, of course, yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Mine, my, yeah. Mine hit me. Thursday. And like for the most part, because like I'm just always working, working, working, working, working. And so, yeah, it hit me Thursday, dude. And like we, had to do a bunch of hospital stuff in the morning. So she to like, Hey, let's go get some food because we haven't eaten all day. It's been nothing but like surgery stuff. And so I'm driving and it hits. And I'm just like,
Pedro: But I'm feeling a little bit better though. Mm-hmm.
Eric: I'm gonna die right here. I just need to close my eyes and like I need something to bleed out, drain out. It just feels like there's a knife in me. She's like, what's wrong? like, I don't know. I don't know. And it just hit me so fucking hard. And then like the yeah, I think it was yesterday. I today's no yeah, I guess it was Friday. And I just laid in bed and just tried to like, like, we can we can set myself just try to like fight it off. Yeah, I don't understand what
Pedro: you
Eric: I guess it's cedar cedar time in this in this area.
Pedro: Yeah, it's allergy time right now for everybody. Like my right ear just clicks and pops. Like I open my jaw, pops. I close my jaw, pops. And if I don't take or whatever, it's just popping all day long. It's terrible.
Eric: And shut it. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. I've had a tendonitis ring. it's like a faucet run. And 24-7, right? And I've had it since 2017. And it happened because I got some kind of sinus infection and it pushed up against my eardrum. And it was like a ring for two And I was going fucking insane. This was like 2017, 2018.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: And I finally got it down. I took a bunch of all these different kind of pills and ⁓ and to your blood flowing. I got going. But any time like some like hardcore sinus saying like this now, dude, left side, everything like it's like I can and it's like a squishy sound. It's like ⁓ wet on the It's just all inflamed and ⁓ all draining.
Pedro: And that's for people that like yourself and I, like we like to play and sing. Like it's just, it's terrible.
Eric: Yeah It's terrible you have these crazy signs like ⁓ dude if I got a sing I have to like I gotta tell my life. I'm like I feel like Prince. ⁓ mean, all right The whole day I need to like drink coffee and they take a couple of showers I need to drain it out because if I'm on stage trying to push and I have that headache Like it feels like it's behind my eye like just it's the worst so ⁓
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Eric: Sinus things are crazy. it's all like it messes with, know, it pushes on your temple and pushes on equilibrium. It like will make you dizzy. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's just like it's just a little bit of swelling.
Pedro: Yeah, I relate dude Yeah. Yeah. I relate. ⁓ Yeah. relate. I totally relate to it. Like my, feel bad for my wife because she gets like migraines that is literally for the whole day. She's literally unavailable.
Eric: Yeah, like I, I'll get these weird little star migraines where it's just like half my half my vision is just this wavy kind of, and it's just like maybe one eye. And I was telling my mom about, she's like, I'll get those migraines too. And like, that's what a migraine is. She's like, well, they're all different, but yeah, I'll get those. I was like, yeah, those hit and I'm done for the day. And I'm like, my wife's like, you want to go do something like I can't see. can't do anything. I think I'm dying again. She's like, you got a migraine? Yeah, I think I'm dying again. She's like, okay. Yeah, it's like every fucking time. Like, I deleted all my history. I saved my passwords. I slipped them under the door. Just leave it alone and die. I'll be okay.
Pedro: Again. ⁓
Eric: hit my customers up, let them know what happened.
Pedro: ⁓ jeez. Let him know I went out. You know, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, with a migraine. It's I feel for her, dude. It's it's it's crazy. It's I mean, it's it's all like, you know, nervous systems. And, you know, I mean, not like a I grew up kind of religious, but I'm not like a huge, huge religious. I'm a spiritual person like the body itself is a crazy contraption how everything works. And like, yeah, man, like when the brain hits or migraines or nerve endings or something like that, it'll drop you. I'm like, I don't know how it works. It's like when my back hurts, like I don't know, it just fucking hurts. Like I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, so I feel for her.
Pedro: Yeah. Well, you know, ⁓ how are you?
Eric: I am 43 this year. Yeah, I'm getting old.
Pedro: Yeah, it's like I've I tell people this and I feel like everybody relates I for some reason when I hit 30 dude, I don't know what it was man I don't know like they did all it all started going downhill and a lot of people can relate I've had some people say oh wait till you hit 40 and it goes even more and I'm almost there I'm gonna be 37 in two weeks
Eric: ⁓ my god. Yeah. You know, it's not, it's, everything always hurts though. Like everything just always hurts, but it just depends on how much a dumb ass you were in your younger years. like, dude, in a high school, like we would hang on the front of my buddy's car and he would drive, like he lived in Bentree and he would drive around the whole like area until he got to the park and he'd slam on his brakes and we would fly off. We would like,
Pedro: you Ha
Eric: We would be on the back of like a pickup truck and try to like jump into other other people's pickup truck. Like so you did stupid things. So it just depends on how level stupid like skateboarding. I know skateboarding ruined me. BMX ruined me. Football most certainly ruined me. So but like besides that, like my level of fun and enthusiasm, I feel like I'm younger. I feel like all I you know.
Pedro: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: It's awesome. It's great. But like you it's cool. It's also cool because when you hit like I feel like when you hit that level of 40, you just you just don't give a shit about certain things and like, you know, people's opinions too. But like, you know, it's cool because you had this level of freedom. You're feeling young. You're like, hell yeah. Fuck. Yeah, I'm going to take the day. And then you wake up in the morning and like your whole body is just locked. You know, you're like.
Pedro: That's cool. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, nope.
Eric: I'm gonna make some coffee and just like you know see how goes
Pedro: man, yeah, like the other day my wife looked at me, she's like, are you okay? Because I crouched down to put a guitar, pick up something. I don't remember what it was, ⁓ as I stood up it was pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Everything started popping.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, back neck, everything random, random arms gonna pop when you're standing up. You're like, how is that like just twisting popping? It's wild. You know, I think it's just just how you destroyed yourself as a kid and like, you know, you need to take vitamins and minerals and all. I mean, our bodies are made up of stardust pretty much, you know, we're phosphorus and magnesium and iron and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, as you. Yeah, well, like.
Pedro: Sure. Yeah. a bunch of vitamin pills with water and flesh.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, dude, that's what I'm saying. The whole body's a crazy fucking thing. But as you're living, not only using the restroom and stuff, but sweating, you're losing all these minerals and vitamins and all these things. And if you're like me that don't eat his vegetables and just loves cheeseburgers and french fries and loves grilling every day, I don't consume those vitamins like I should. And I've just been depleting them. since 1982. I mean, it is what it is.
Pedro: You You started losing the day we were born. just like, just, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, it's crazy. Like I was talking about how my my ear was messed up. Like it keeps pushing this one out because it's so like swollen inside. Yeah, like I can't keep this this dude in. It's fucking annoying. But so I life. Wild.
Pedro: ⁓ wow. Yeah, man. I remember like in the early days of Rez, you know, I'm like, okay, we play the music well, we sound good, we look good, but what can we do on stage to look badass? You know, what can we do? Like, so to me, back in the day, I started watching these metalcore bands doing like the guitar flip, right? Like flipping the guitar behind the back. I can't remember like how many times I hit myself with the back of the head doing that.
Eric: Yeah.
Pedro: And so I was like, okay, this is not good. I'm going to get a TBI. Let me stop doing that. And then I saw another guy. I don't remember what band or who the guy stood up on the top of his amp and he literally jumped off. And I saw another guy doing the same thing off the bass drum. He would get on the bass drum and he would jump off the bass drum. So then that's what I started doing. And now my knees, I feel it because of that for sure.
Eric: Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude, I bet I remember like jumping off the stage at like House of Rock onto the concrete like in the early like it just to be like, yeah, yeah, cool. Like I'm walking walking in front of seven people play. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, look, I want to walk to that person that's just hanging out and like, oh, my God. Oh, dude, the the the last
Pedro: Look at me, I can play and jump at the same time.
Eric: Throat Locust Show, we played with Obscura and a bunch of awesome bands. And so were the first ones up and this hilarious. And so we went over to QBR real quick and ⁓ we're our way back and, know, Corpus Roads just like the best. They've always been the smoothest ⁓ and just they take very care of roads. ⁓ And I love it, downtown. Especially, yeah.
Pedro: Yes, great use of the taxpayer money here in Corpus.
Eric: And so I walked off and like I'm walking along the concrete and there's just this pothole like I've never seen a pothole in this town and there's just this pothole and I just rolled my ankle before we start playing right and I rolled it so hard it felt like shit just kind of like stretch popped like it wasn't broken it wasn't bad but like I felt it right I've yeah well it was the wall foot
Pedro: Like you just felt something wasn't like completely right.
Eric: too, right? So like we get up on stage, I load my shit, I'm limping like a fucking old man. Get up there, we play our shit. didn't like as I'm playing at the adrenaline hit the walls go and I'm like, yeah, do do do do fucking hey. And so like it's just rocking and fucking killing, right? And so we get done. I'm like, hell fucking yeah. And I because you know, as a musician, you have to have the heaviest fucking
Pedro: Ha ha ha. you
Eric: gear ever right you need old tube amps and 412s and seven of them at least and so fucking grabbing the thing walking off and then I put pressure on I was like ah fuck you and so dude just real quick and like young or whatever would have rolled that foot I would have kicked somebody in the face would have jumped off on stage and like yeah look at my foot and like it'd been fine now at fucking 43 like I text the dudes like
Pedro: Yeah, it responded really quick.
Eric: I loaded all my shit, everybody's up front, people are over the merch, like the merch table's pretty packed up and people are hanging out. like to go and hang out with people. Music the greatest thing in the world to play to enjoy. The other part is hanging out with people. It's just the new like that. I love, I fucking love that part. So there's all these people there and I'm looking at them like nah. They got it. They're good. So I texted him. I was like, Hey guys, I loaded up. I'm heading home. And then like, are you leaving? I like, yeah, because I usually I don't leave right away. I usually hang out at least for the for the whole fucking show. And so I'm like driving, trying to like put gas on it. I'm like, it was annoying.
Pedro: Mm-mm. Man, I had a similar thing happen to me. We were playing a Fitzgerald, I think it's in San Antonio. And I think from the green room, there's like this long staircase that leads straight into the stage. I remember coming down the staircase just quick and I put my foot down as soon as you hit the stage and I felt something pop. ⁓ And it turned out I had partially
Eric: Yep.
Pedro: torn my Achilles right there then.
Eric: Really? ⁓
Pedro: this was right we went on.
Eric: Yeah, always right before you go on. It has to be. Yeah.
Pedro: right before we go. So the whole show, I shit you not dude, I put my right foot on top of my left foot and I'm literally standing like a fucking owl playing. Yeah, just literally like just looking like an owl playing guitar and because every time I would put my foot down it was just like immediately shocking pain and then when we were done I had
Eric: like a goddamn penguin to everybody. Fucking shit. I love that.
Pedro: At the time, Paul Garcia was, when he was still alive, he came over. He's like, are you okay? Cause you just stood in that one spot the whole show. I'm like, dude, I think I fucked something up. Now I knew it was my Achilles. So he helped me get off the stage, man. And I took my shoe off. My shoe was, my foot was swollen and the whole drive home. Yeah. I had my foot up on the dashboard. Cause it was just so swollen. Got home and then went to the doctor and sure enough, I partially tore my Achilles right there.
Eric: Yeah. ⁓ You know
Pedro: And it sucked because I was in so much pain the whole show, dude. was like ⁓ trying to hide it, you know, trying to look like you're up there, know, bobbing your head. But, you know, at that point, you're not really having fun. You're just trying to get through it.
Eric: ⁓ I bet. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, no, I've been through those. mean, talking about like stomach aches and shit like that. Like you've been on stage, like, you know, like you shouldn't have eaten what you should have eaten. It's already hot on stage. It's hot in the venue. You're moving your gear and then your stomach starts hurting. Yeah, everybody, everybody's had that happen to them. And it's like, it's. a scary feeling. And yeah, it's one of those times where you just like. You don't remember the show, you know you did a good show. Everybody said you were awesome and great, but it was just like push through. There's a lot of those times, man. It's wild. Yeah. ⁓
Pedro: Yeah. Yeah, like subconsciously, subconsciously, you're just looking at the finish line, like, God, like, I got 15 fucking songs to go and we just started. Yeah.
Eric: No, No, ⁓
Pedro: ⁓ yeah. You know, there's something about those shows that I like is like, you know, once you're about an hour in, sometimes when we play these local shows and we were like, you know, you guys open up for a bunch of national acts when they come through town, but about an hour in, sometimes I feel like I'm finally, finally getting to my groove and then the show's over, you know?
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's what that's that's that's with every ⁓ one of the bands we always say, like once you're three songs, four songs in, like you're feeling it and then you only have a 30 minute set. So you're done. And that's that is the that is the the the one thing I don't like about the local shows and like the opening ones and stuff like that, because you only have a certain amount of time. And it's understandable because, you know, the main act has. you know, an hour and a half and they're, you know, they're the main fucking act on either recording label out of town or whatever it is. But yeah, that's OK. I will admit that is one of the things that I do respect and a little jealous of, like when you get to do those three hour shows, because, like once that first hour hits, you're in it, you're locked, you're great. Like that's it's one reason why a lot of bands when they come off the road and they write an album, it always smokes.
Pedro: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: because like they've been in it and they've just been just pushing and pushing and writing and playing and like, you know, they're sharp and like there's a difference. Like is this I don't even know if we can go in right now or we just bullshit. OK, cool. OK, cool, because I know, I just start going at times. And so that's, know, one of the things that, you know, I love about like.
Pedro: They're sharp. Yeah, I set it to record as soon as my guest comes in, so I don't forget. No, go for it, bruh.
Eric: When you have somebody that's just been pushing and pushing and pushing like there's a difference of playing at home every day and playing live like three, four days in a row. it's you practice every day. You can put your headphones in and like, you know, I'm not putting any of that down because there's many musicians that have never played live that will just smoke me and every right. And just they are just fantastic musicians. ⁓
Pedro: ⁓ 100%.
Eric: instrumentalist is this whatever pronounce it like whatever it is like they're just really great rounded musicians but like when it comes to writing a unit and creating as a like a structure there's just something about three to seven dudes just huffing it for months and just killing it killing killing because If you play music live and you know it, but you kind of lock in when you've been doing it for so long and it's just like instant. And that's like with Switchblade, it's instant. Like we don't even have to practice for three months and we can play a live show. Perfect. But it's you have those people that have just been just killing it. I hearing that music opposed to like when a bunch of dudes just kind of get together over like recording this, recording that, recording this, recording that, sending to each other. Random tangent on that. But yeah, I mean, it's Like I don't know.
Pedro: I think, know, has put out two albums and a lot of people say, you know, the second album sounds really polished, like you guys really care of it, but the first album sounds like, like the energy was better. And that's because, because we recorded it live. It was whole band in the studio, one, two, three, go. we just played everything, you know, we had a click to our ears, but even then... ⁓ We only had this click. There's song in particular, like it changes tempo so much. There was like, it's just going no click. Let's just go based on feel. And there's something about, like you said, when those guys, everybody just locks in and you guys are synced ⁓ and just full throttle ahead, man. That's something else. ⁓ That's capturing like lightning on the bottle almost.
Eric: It is. mean, and that's one thing I do like about like the first Switchblade album was recorded live in a way like that. And the second one was was actually the second one was was done kind of that way, too. But I think with with a lot of the problem, not the problems, but the aspects of the first album situation with any band is like you're a very raw band looking to cut your name and trying to get your place. very rare that a lot of bands like I think for me like I have a huge breadth of music but I have a nice like for me Pantera was one of the ones that got ⁓ more aggressive they went is they just kept pushing pushing pushing pushing and you got a band like fairness who I Absolutely love they started insane and then they just kind of brought it down a little bit more and it seems like a lot of bands have done that
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: Metallica is one, know, Metallica is one of the greatest. They've done that. Even Led Zeppelin. It's lot of that first angst of that release. Like you want to prove yourself and push something. And then when you have the second release, you either have the two options. You either got signed and you have a backing of a record label pushing you to get something done. So you need to push it. or you're like us and we just get to do whatever we want to do and we're kind of relaxed. The great thing about being relaxed is we have a lot more options of what we want to create sonically. We don't have somebody like pushing us. The bad thing about that is we kind of lose some of that angst. We kind of lose some of that aggression. And I've seen it with a lot of bands. I mean, but also like genre depending too. Like if you're playing like extreme gore. ⁓ slam death like it's every album's extreme score slam death but if you know if you're if you're like bands like y'all or like you know like switchblade like we we always wanted to create different or different structures different like things like ⁓ 100 like that's one thing i loved about like you know pink floyd you know there's a whole breadth of pink floyd to listen to baroness is the same mastodon is the same
Pedro: kind of explore within the sandbox kind of thing.
Eric: Like there's this whole thing. I love that. Even like, you know, you have the middle stage of Macedon where they're like, the sky where they still have a little bit Leviathan. They're still now they're getting their more King Crimson really out kind of look. It's, great. Like I love that. But then like with throat locus, it's a very focused situation. Like this is what we're doing.
Pedro: Yeah, Macedon for sure.
Eric: this is what we're after and this is what we're going for. And everybody is pretty much on the same page. Everybody's got their solid input on what they feel everything needs to go, which I love. So it's cool to have these two different scenarios. Like one, we do whatever the hell we want to. The other one, let's focus on what we're gonna do.
Pedro: I see behind you got the amps. That's the lany behind you,
Eric: Yeah, that's a Laney and over a Marshall I'm fixing. have main amp is a VHT Pitbull. I have a Crank Rev. That was my dad's. Then I have a Yamaha Saldana, which is a T100. Then ⁓ my 71 and then an ⁓ 85 and other office room area. I got way too many amps, but I mean, it's cool to have a bunch of
Pedro: Nice.
Eric: things to layer with, like each album that I've ever done. I have two different, three different amps on it, three different pedals. I like to layer in structure. It's fun that way. get a of different tones. ⁓
Pedro: Absolutely. I did too. I did too. I think there's so much like real estate, you know, like, and you mix you get to cover as much as that real estate. And sometimes you have to, you know, tone something down or you have three or four different tones. Okay. Maybe you have to cut this one or this one, but at least you have the options to, to mix it.
Eric: ⁓ yeah, one of like, I love the IR situations right now. IRs are killer, I use them for a couple of demos or just home. Like Alex, like we mean for, with Throat Locust, me and him send tracks back and forth, but I still want them to sound good. And ⁓ like, pick a couple of IRs. Gil will write some drums and he'll send them to me and we'll go back and forth. But when it comes to like recording recording, I like the real thing personally.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Eric: So with the option situations, one of my favorite thing to do is when Locust recorded the last single, had Brian, he a one of my amps or ⁓ most of my cabs, mix speakers ⁓ because frequencies like when have just all the same four speakers, you're just hitting those frequencies. When you have when you have something that hits mids lows, something that pushes, you know, you know, or actually cuts your lows and mids. Like you kind of have this nice little breath of like sonic kind of push. And it's cool because anybody that's ever tried my cabs like, wow, these things don't really good. And so with that, with Brian, I had him do an SM57 on the V30 and a condenser on the K85. And so when we recorded, he could blend both of those, see what what he needed more. And then after that, doubled it with a completely different amp. So then he had four tracks of two amps with like so many possibilities. He can mix and like, okay, well, the bass has taken a little bit too much. Let's do the amp that has a little bit more mids and highs to cut over. And then with solos, I think I did just two different amps so he could pick from. But like those options are great to have because
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: When you get into a studio situation, you're like, okay, my amp is my amp and I want my sound to be like this and it's going to be amazing. And well, the problem that people don't understand is a lot of the lot of it comes down to your speaker and your microphone. And so let's say they have a microphone, but it's old ⁓ the are old or whatever. This is this, this is that. Like if you just limit yourself to just this, just this, just this, let's roll. You're going to be missing a frequency you're wanting to hear that's one of these things don't capture. So always like.
Pedro: up sounding thin.
Eric: It always ends up sounding thin. I quad track by my guitars, all of them. You don't have to use all four tracks. Like you don't have to, four different tracks and so many different speakers, well, I'm sorry, I double track my guitars with four different channels for two different speaker combinations. And so with that, you those options to choose. And if you give the engineer that option, they're gonna love you a lot more because
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: Now they have all these frequencies that they can adjust to and choose from this and then like send you this like, hey, what do you think about this? I'm like, I like this, but can you add more low end? Well, it's hard to just add low end without changing the whole EQ curve. So if your other speaker has a little bit more low end, they can just blend that into it a little bit more. Like a Mark, well, I was gonna say Marshall's are real boxy. Like they have a ha ha ha.
Pedro: Yeah. That's nice. Good.
Eric: kind of mids when you do that mixing, you can mix it up to like if you're wanting that more slayer tone or if you're wanting a more AC-DC tone out of the exact same amp. That's why like JCM800 say, fun facts, all amps are the fucking same. I was talking to Brian about this too. If you ever have a chance, ask him about muffins. ⁓ know Brian at Guitar Center. This my analogy of it and he laughed about it. But all amps are pretty much the same. and then you have like, you know, your JCM 800, which is like the mid ground of all of it, right? So that's why a JCM 800 can sound like ACDC, can sound like Slayer, can sound like Led Zeppelin, can sound like whoever is because of the speaker that is being used for that amp. also ohms matter too, because 16 ohms are going to be a more open, broader tone and eight ohms are a tighter tone. That's why The whole coveted new metal tone is a Mesa V30 It's an 8 ohm V30 and a Mesa cab that is sealed so you can get any cab you want Sorry, my nose is itching. You can get any cab you want make sure it's sealed that you can kind of control that low end put some mid 2000s V30 8 ohms and then that's that exact corn God smack the
Pedro: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: What's his name? Mark Tramonte. Ultra Bridge. Yeah, I agree dude like his his his it's crazy and everybody laughs but his Mesa Bogey dual rect tone is like one of the best. It is class it. He knows tone and so like a lot of people they go after that and they're trying to just like throw whatever they want but they don't stop to think about speakers and the ohms that the speakers are used for.
Pedro: Yeah. Alter Bridge Creed. He knows tone, dude.
Eric: It's all reasons.
Pedro: Yeah, he's got, he actually has his signature amplifier. He released like a ⁓ watt version of it, which is super loud. Yeah, which is super loud for a 15, but he also released a hundred watt at the MT-100. ⁓ I eventually I'm going to get one because I love that amp. Like it's so, there's three channels, so versatile. And like I said, he took the, he took the best parts of his favorite amps. think like,
Eric: The MT-15 right? That's what I'm here to go.
Pedro: He took like an ubershaw and then he took I forget all the amps that he took but there's plenty of videos on YouTube you can watch you can see exactly what part of which amp he took Lately he's got his hands on a dumbbell and he loves that thing too ⁓
Eric: Dumbbells are great. Well, mean, that's that I think Dumbbells might be one of the few that is par for the course of it all. But like he's able to do that because all amps are the same. They are, man. And so all amps, all guitar amps started from the RCA book back in like the 40s. Right. so Fender made their amp out of that one. And Marshall made their version out of that, out of that Fender. Right. And so you have these two, you know, American and European builds. They're kind of going left and left, you know.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: bouncing from each other and they just kind of build and build and build. Well, that's when Randall Smith ⁓ Mesa Boogie comes in and he got, ⁓ I remember which, which Princeton, vendor. And so he started, you know, modding those and that became the Mark series. Well, Soldano is actually a modded, modded Marshall. It's a modded Mark two or Mark And so you have this, this heavy game, Soldano coming from this vendor heritage. then everything else has copied off of that. The 51 50, the Mesa boogie, all of those were copied from, you know, that Soldano from that original Mesa. It's just this whole, everybody just copies everybody. So he's able to take, he's able to take the diesel part. He's able to take the Mesa part. He's able to take that. And it's, it's literally just like a few different type of.
Pedro: Yeah.
Eric: cathode capacitor adjustments just couple of different tricks. I I saw the breakdown of a modded or it's the Freeman ⁓ Cali amp. like a $4,000 amp. ⁓ It's literally a Marshall JMP with switches, bells and whistles. Like there's nothing, there's like, these things aren't. ⁓ rocket science. It's literally I mean, I saw it's comparable to a big muff almost like how the way the gain stages and everything reacts. Everything is the same. It's crazy. It makes me laugh. So like when I see no 3000 $4000 amps and people like, you know, I want to grab them like hell yeah dude, you go fucking grab that I got my VHT because it was I got my VHT for 1200 bucks. It's only reason I got the VHT I bought it was during COVID. I bought an angle
Pedro: Yeah.
Eric: like a solid price. I love that eagle. I bought it for like 900 bucks. The eagle was amazing, but it didn't have enough mids for, for throat locus. I mean for, not for, for switchblade because I guess switchblade is real loud mid, know, pushing. I didn't have a throat locus yet before the sale. So I it sale ⁓ and met a buddy. He's a good buddy of mine now. ⁓ And he picked that And with that cash, I went and bought a VHT.
Pedro: Mm. That's a good point, ⁓
Eric: on reverb like that same day. And that's just what I've been using. But yeah, like everybody's like, oh my God, you got a VHC. I'm like, yeah, dude. But I would probably play, you know, EVH Iconic if I didn't have it. It's the same, it's all the same shit. Alex has an EVH Iconic, the 80 watt one. I think it sounds amazing. He has an EQ in the, oh, he might've taken that out now. He used to have an EQ in the loop. And when you put an EQ in the loop,
Pedro: ⁓ nice.
Eric: With any amp, you can really adjust how the power amp section hits. And so he's able to shape it and he got it close to the VHD. I mean like real damn close.
Pedro: That's nice. You know what amp I really liked? I owned it for a long time. It was the ⁓ to Tweaker series. It was an 88 one. That amp was great. ⁓
Eric: ⁓ yeah. Why don't you look into the Synergy then? It's it's, Eggnator is one of the people that helped divide like amps is, is the Eggnator whole module like prophecy thing that you did, but it's designed by Friat of VHT. Like VHT is one of the best power sections ever. I will go down and in arguments with that. can. I am telling you, if anybody ever like sits, if anybody ever has a chance to sit down with like the old classic, it's this big chrome or big purple power section. It is like it. ⁓
Pedro: Hehehehehe And for people that are watching right now and you're like, how come this fucking guy knows so much about amps? Because that's like, ⁓ literally grew up tinkering with amps and tinkering with shit, right? It's like self-taught. And you just taught yourself how to do all that stuff throughout the years.
Eric: Hmm? Yeah, I grew up like my dad he he pretty much got me because my dad used to race Moto GP and so he used to race the CMRA and so he he always had like Sport bikes and super bikes in the in the garage and he's always tinkering and messing them. I remember one year like he took out all the bolts Just just we he just took apart the engine everything with titanium ones that could you know, we're titanium titanium worked and was beneficial. like we were always just doing that. And I remember he got an old Charvel, he stripped it down and spray painted it. And then like, I'm watching him and he gets me these like little RC cars from Snap-on and I'm like taking the wheels off and change them and breaking shit. He's like, I stopped at those things from Snap-on and really expensive because Snap-on is stupid expensive. And so like it was just always growing up in that kind of household or just tearing things apart. yeah, for ⁓ this stuff, it was for Frost Giant. It was I had a rat pedal and it broke on me. so I'm I don't like I mean, this was 2015 ⁓ or So I was I was working as a screen printer, so I really didn't have a ton of cash. Yeah. And so I
Pedro: I do. I remember that
Eric: ⁓ yeah, we've known each other at least since what, like 2010?
Pedro: ⁓ yeah, dude, for a while now. Yeah.
Eric: Roughly right? Yeah. It was like 2015 I was working as a
Pedro: I think you might have done some shirts for Rez. I think I remember going to your house and picking up a box of shirts for Rez.
Eric: think I did. Yeah, I'm pretty positive I did. actually did a lot of screen printing out of my house. And so I forgot about that. And time flies when you're getting old. And so, yeah, I didn't really a ton of cash on my shit. I can just figure this out. It's not rocket science like any of the everything is. Everything is fixable. Like I think the only time I'm ever like ever worried about something is like when I have to work on my car because I'm like, this has to get me from here to here. Don't fuck up.
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, stakes are higher.
Eric: And like, you know, replacing. Yeah, like replacing mission coils and all that kind of stuff. I'm like, all right, let's do it. And so like it's always like knock on plywood or whatever fiber wood that is. But yeah, so like I was like, screw it. I can I can fix it. And so in that meantime, I was like, well, let me just order a backup. So I have a backup for this. So I fixed it up. I'm playing. I'm like, all right, cool. Hell, yeah. You know, I don't I don't suck. And nothing blew up. so the other one comes in and they sound different. I'm like, well, why do they sound different? They're the exact same pedal. Like nothing, nothing different. I open the insides to all the same. They look the same except like the colors of resistors or capacitors are different from different ⁓ brands and like that. But any electronics. What the value is matters, not the color of it, not the brand. I mean, unless you're getting into like really cheap brand of capacitors, that does matter, but that's a whole different story. Like it's the value of it. That's what matters. And so. I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I picked up this one book is by Jack Orman. And it's like this this old, old school ⁓ guide of of like, rebuilding ⁓ mods and stuff. It's really cool book. And he starts talking about drifting and what the fuck is drifting. And so I found out that like, you know, the certain type ⁓ of called carbon, they drift. And that means the value changes over time. That's why like old electronics like People tag me into fixing their home stereo stuff. I'm am not touching that. Because everything is old resistors. You gotta replace because it's all drifted and it's bad. And it's just like, no. God, no. So that's why I started learning about that. And so it was like this rabbit hole of like, okay, well, why does it do that? Okay, well, why that affect that? Why should matter?
Pedro: you
Eric: And okay, well, what happens if I do this? it was just this constant thing of like figuring out what do of a to make it awesome and not blow up. And I blew up a lot, dude. I mean, it's hilarious when a capacitor goes, like there's these, what are they? little of electrolytic capacitors, they're filled with fluid and foil. And when put them on the wrong polarity, they pop and it's like a firecracker, dude. And it's smoke everywhere. It is fun as hell. And so when I first started Frostshine, it was just me in the bedroom and it's literally my bed. And I have this craftsman work.
Pedro: ⁓ shit.
Eric: like this this little red cart. I flipped the top one over. So now it's a flat. And so I'm building pedals on there. It's shit. It's like eight eight at night. She's watching TV trying to go to bed. It's like, smoke everywhere and like sparks. I turn around. Do I turn around like that? That kind of hamster that like that real quick. And she's like, What are you doing? Like, are you okay? She's like, Yeah, are you okay? Like, Yeah, sorry about that. So like, yeah, you blister.
Pedro: So, so like, how do you, so how do you go from like, yeah, I'm building these, I'm doing all these by myself, but I think I can like escalate this and scale it to a business. when did that, when was that a aha moment for you?
Eric: That was like an accident moment. So what happened was is I'm building masses, right? And like the reason why I built a massive pedal in the first place was it was a tone that I was after by a band called Slomatics. And they have this video, it's called Live at Belfast recording, or practice space. it's, if you have a chance, listen to it and you'll go, and that video, And that tone me on my path, right? Like that's the whole reason I'm like, okay, ⁓ love ⁓ sludge metal because of this tone. And cool because I use my pedal now, but yeah, yeah, it's cool. And so they had this pedal called a Meathead. And what a Meathead is, the 70s, the 70s clone of, or this clone of a 70s color sound one knob. And it's just this big, massive, mean, ugly fuzz, right?
Pedro: ⁓ that's sick as hell.
Eric: This is still me working at a print, you know, well now I'm not working at a print shop. I'm not just printing out of my house. So I still got a little bit of extra money, but not much. And this is before like I'm building pedals. I'm still just repairing them, right? And I think, man, I really want that pedal, but I can't afford it because it's a UK made pedal from a damn machines and they're just the most beautiful things ever. And it's like 300 or 400 bucks. And I'm I can never afford that. I can never afford that. So let me see if I can build one that's for me. Like not clone it, but let me see what it is. So I found the schematics. I found the schematics of the one knob. I'm like, ⁓ shit, he's just changing a few things. He's not, it's not anything like he's like, holy shit, building this, this of a pedal. He's literally just changing things.
Pedro: Here. Nothing novel. It was like tinkering with stuff.
Eric: Exactly. So I'm like, I'm remembering, you know, when I was messing with the rats and things drifting and things, I'm like, okay, so changes things. Okay. does change thing? Why does that add this and that that? And so what I did ⁓ is I a board and I put all sockets on it. Right. And so sockets, you know, it's just, I can't see it, but they're just like little, little pins and got socketed would socketed, not the power section, not any kind of switching thing, but like the inputs, the way the hit the transistors, all that ⁓ socketed. So I built a one knob fuzz. I was like, okay, cool, this thing sounds great. Then I built ⁓ meathead. was like, okay, cool, this thing sounds like video, but it doesn't sound exactly like the video. Why doesn't it sound like the video? Well, it's because they're using that pedal through a 70s mad amp and they're just like fuzz upon fuzz. I was like, okay, so I need to get more fuzz out of mine, but I need to make it tighter because ⁓ this tightness to it because of that amp.
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: Long winded, sorry. So it was just me tinkering with things trying to figure it out until I found out what it was. I was like, okay, cool. I like this. This sounds great. I'm gonna roll with this. And I started playing it. I put out a couple of videos that sounded good. I made three of them. I put them on Facebook. Three dudes like, hey, that's pretty fucking awesome. How much you want? was like 99 bucks. I was like, okay, cool. I'll buy them. And so those three sold. Used that money to buy more cases and then put more into.
Pedro: No, you can't.
Eric: to pedal. was like, okay, cool. Let's let's make a couple of masses. When my second pedal broke, because I'm on gear, I've I've fixed my my I have a cowboys from hell wall. It's that you know, the the camel and you've seen it before. I fixed that thing five times easily. I'm really like stomp on my gear. I used to do a stupid thing where I would like I would sit on my wall with one foot. and just rock back and forth like a fucking flamingo. yeah, and yeah, everybody. Yeah, it's fun as fuck. But like it's hard on your gear. And so and like I would like I'd be turned to John playing and I would hit my pedalboard with my with the heel of my foot to make it all dramatic and cool. I was into the band called The Shrine. And if you don't The Shrine, check out The Shrine. It's like two dudes or one dude pretty much. And he's just insane. Anyways.
Pedro: do that. ⁓ Yes.
Eric: So it was like, know, I've got the Massive out, a couple people are digging it, I've broken my rat pedal, let's build a rat pedal. And so I built the mountain and I put it out and two people were like, I want that. I was like, okay, cool, so I built two more, sent out, one guy did a demo, people are like, holy shit, that thing sounds great, what did you do? I was like, well, I just built it the way I feel it should be. I made a white face rat, is, I hate the names after white face and black face, it sounds so back at, back woods, it really does. But it's just, the printing on it, like if there's a whole white square or a black square, it's ridiculous. But it's, the white face rat is like the Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd 80s rat, and then the 90s rat is a little bit more aggressive. So it just kind of.
Pedro: Yes. Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric: made my little adjustments of that. And then I gave it bunch of bells and whistles and it just started ticking off. So I started doing those what really happened was the case was called Mammoth, Mammoth Enclosures. They were cool, except they really weren't. So like they get their shit together at all. So I ordered a case and it was pre-drilled. This is where I my drill.
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: It get here. Wrong case. I hit him up. I was like, hey, you guys sent me the wrong case. OK, hold on. Send me another one. was like, dude, still wrong case. So seriously, this happened four times, right? the fourth time I was like, you guys would just drive me insane. I have people waiting. I didn't have people, but I was like, I got people waiting like I felt like fucking prince again. Like I'm you know, Mr. Fucking impressive. I was like, I got people waiting for him and I need him now. So he's like, all right. I don't know what the whole fucking deal is, but hold on. So I get a box with five cases in it. They're all wrong. I hit him up. I was like, I got the picture off the website. I like, this is what I ordered. And I sent him all the picture of all the cases like, and this is what you keep sending me. He's like, ⁓ not one of them is like whole. was a holy shit. Hold on. And apparently they had the wrong order number on the website.
Pedro: Not one of them. Right.
Eric: So I kept ordering the wrong one, even though the picture was the one. Yeah. So this whole thing. So I was like, send me. I was like, send me.
Pedro: like the product number was wrong.
Eric: On the website. Yeah, so the picture was what was right, but the product number. Yeah, yeah, because they had like the product number here, but above you saw the product number again under the one that they kept sending me. OK, so I was like, yeah, I was like, send me a return label. I'll send all these trees like not man. You just keep them. I'm sorry. I was like, that's OK. I just want the right one. He's like, no, I've already got it sent in the right one. Finally comes in. I was like, thank you. But then I got like.
Pedro: What you wanted, the number was something else and they kept sending you something else. Yeah. I'm following.
Eric: seven of these cases. I'm like, the hell am I going to do with these? I was like, well, guess we'll make custom mountains. And so I made a bunch of mountains with some new knobs and fun looking those. Yeah. And yeah, because I wasn't I wasn't powder coating at that time. What I would do is I would do a base coat. I'd put it in. I went and bought these little toaster ovens. I put it in a toaster oven because you don't want to put spray painting your own. It's very, very bad.
Pedro: I remember that because you would post them on Facebook.
Eric: leaks the chemicals gets in your oven, but you can actually cook paint into the metal like to make it a little bit stronger. So you get a toaster oven. put it like 400 degrees. You spray paint it, put in the toaster oven, close it. You get the big ones, right? And cooks that ⁓ that into the metal. So it's not like it's powder coating, but you could drop it and it's not going to like chip off. It actually have three of them.
Pedro: you
Eric: two of them here, two blue ones that I did like that. They're still looking great and they've been in a box banging around. So it's actually it works pretty well. So the first ones I had, was like two or three blue ones and two or three like metallic green ones. You know, just cook them and send them out and people are enjoying them. And so then I got with Mammoth, was like, Hey, y'all do custom printing? We're like, yeah, you know, what are you thinking about? I like, I sent them the artwork for the mountain for the massive. it just kind of snowballed after that. And it was just me just making pedals and just I am now. Like I have a whole stack of pedals hanging out. I it. ⁓ It's most random. It's really the most random fucking thing ever. Like I, I'm fortunate I
Pedro: That's awesome. That's awesome.
Eric: can hear tones well and I have a decent ear for what sounds good because everybody seems to like the pedals I put out and it's just wild. It really is because I mean, I never at any point thought I was like, I'm going to build guitar pedals or like I was like, there's this joke. It's it's you either become a famous musician or die as a pedal builder. And I guess, I guess I'm still trying to, trying to, trying to that, uh,
Pedro: Hehehehehe
Eric: That famous musician part, so give me a while. I told him I will. No, no, we're gonna say.
Pedro: That's hilarious. like what the go ahead, go ahead, finish it. Now it's like, so like, so you've, you've made the, the mountain. It's like, what is your philosophy behind like, okay, what do I do next? And what am I going to do different? Cause you have different pedals now.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. mean, main goal is never to create a clone, really. Like, ⁓ go with your own designs. Like, the recent ones that I'm really proud of is the Architect of Reality, which is the preamp section of the 85 Lany that I have, which is like a doom metal amp, but it's also used for rat and ⁓ like ⁓ ⁓ like metal stuff. And then the Eidolon, which is a reverb delay boost pedal. one was actually designed by Electronic Audio first, and then I got it and then put my adjustments on it. I had help with the guy that helped me design the architect, because the thing about all this is I'm not an electrical engineer. didn't go to school for any of this. And so like, I understand more than the basic of it, but there's like some parts of it that I do need help with. I can read upon and read upon as much as I want, but I'm a hands-on kind of person. I have a buddy who's a Nick at Dunwich Amplification, ⁓ he's the one that really put that architect together. And so because of him doing that and me learning off that pedal, I've learned a lot more, and I'm able to build my own stuff without worrying, like, is he going to do this? Am I going to be wasting money with prototypes? I can just nail it out.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: get the prototype in. Star and that one like everybody has a boost pedal that they love and it's usually like like a tube screamer everybody's got a tube screamer right and when put out an overdrive it's usually like a tube screamer clone and everybody's like okay well it's just a different version of a tube screamer technically yeah that's true ⁓ because the screamer the boss SD I mean, I love JHS pedals. JHS is amazing, but they're all clones of pedals except for a couple of different ones. And so like you are approaching things as a new builder, in my opinion, like you need to come up with stuff that's not available, at the same time familiar. So with the Morningstar, I started with the chip and the clipping of the TS9. So like you have the heart of a pedal you're already familiar with. But instead of the tone section, I took that out and I replaced it with a three band active back EQ. And so what that EQ does is it really adjusts pitches and kind of helps. You have really try an active EQ to really know how it affects your tone and how sharp it hits. It's really an aggressive pedal. so with that, put a boost behind the volume knob so you like when you actually push the volume you get a lot more harmonics and a lot more aggression. it's almost like it's almost like a preamp instead of a volume. So as you're pushing it everything's going to be pushing. So with the Morningstar what I wanted to do is give you something that was familiar but a completely new take on it that you like it does it you know it's not a tube screamer. You know it's not an overdrive. It's not something that's just like, you know, adjust it here, change this. And like a lot of problems with lot of custom pedals and boutiques is like, they're just, there's just like a tube screamer with a bunch of extra switches and a blend knob. Like, ⁓ shit, you added a blend knob. That's cool. But like everybody does that. Like Lichlern is one that does like really, really cool stuff. He's out of somewhere. I can't remember, but he does like really cool things. He's putting noise gates, he's putting effects loops in his pedals, he's doing some really cool things. But like, when you come to these big box builders in a way, I don't want to name names because they're really great people and the ones I look up to, a lot of times it's just a tube screamer with a bunch of switches. So with me, I'm a small I need to create things that are, that are.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Eric: Familiar, but are outside the box. Like everybody keeps asking me, like, are you going to do an octave? But Michael, there's octave fuzzes all over the place. Everybody keeps asking me when I'm going to do amps and I'm not going to do it because there's a whole nother. There's a whole nother discussion of why I won't do amps. Like I love them, but it's just it's not. It's a consumer base on that. But it's you have to constantly create cool stuff that feels relative.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: to what you've had in a world of modelers. It's a hard thing right now. I I could tell you.
Pedro: I was gonna ask you about that. what is your you know, there's so many good ones now. There's a quad cortex, which I have the QC, a friend of mine's got the Fender Tone Master, I got another friend has got the camper. So like, I got I got another friend that's got the Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the name now, but it's still the big one.
Eric: Hmm? Hmm? The line six one, the stage.
Pedro: There's there's that one. I mean, there's so many, right? Like, so what are your views on that one? Where do you stand?
Eric: I love them. I think they're great. mean, one of the cool ones is the Kemper player. Like you can actually throw pedals in with that one and it works well. Like there's pedals that work with these things. But, you know, the reality to a lot of this is, I mean, those, people that use those modeling systems are not really my demographic. And by that, mean, those are large touring stage musicians.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Eric: If we're going to be honest with demographic and people, my demographic is people like you and me home players and people buying pedals and trying things out ⁓ trying to find their tone and wanting to spend four grand on the modeler. The people that spend four grand on a modeler, they're not looking to stack bunch of pedals. They're just looking for a fly rig. They're looking for something easy. They're looking for ⁓ something that's dependable and reliable and something that I can take overseas. So with that, like the best thing for me to do is to get with somebody to, and I need to anyways, but I need to get my pedals modeled and I need to get them in that environment. And it's not because I need to get them in my environment to sell or anything like that. need to get them in the environment just so people can see them in that and people know my name more. Like I'm not expecting to be like, I'm going to sell a bunch of patches. ⁓ make money off of that because that's not that's not how it goes. It's just getting your name out more. So I mean, what?
Pedro: Sure. I think the fuzz too, it's from what I hear and from what I read, it's like the hardest thing to recreate in these modulators to get the fuzz right.
Eric: Yeah, because like a fuzz tone is so square wave glitch. You it to sound like shit in a way like you do. Like it needs to be that blown out, that fart sound almost right. ⁓ Modelers made for Gojira. They're made for for periphery. They're made for that that smooth, honest to God tone of like, you know.
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right.
Eric: that sounds like Eddie Van Halen, then you hit a button and you sound like Mastodon. Like it's not really, it's not made for like Bongripper you know, any of these big doom metal bands ⁓ like the kids that are just starting out on the road ⁓ or just dudes pushing it every night. Like there's, I love there's still like, there's that, back in the eighties, there was this huge rock mentality, right? And everybody had these just massive just
Pedro: Right.
Eric: Eventide all these space racks, right? And then all of a sudden they all got moved to a pedal board. And you have these communities of people that have these pedal boards that are like the size of a Buick. And it's just like every and they're like, hold on, watch. And then they open it. And there's there's like, there's more, there's more underneath it. And everybody's like, why do you need that? He's like, I don't I love it. And like, that's why I got random Godzilla toys and tattoos and all that kind of stuff like
Pedro: Yeah. And then they open up more pedals underneath there. Yeah. you
Eric: Like I, people love it. Like I have, I have, I'm so fortunate that I have like a following of people that buy like there's, there's one dude out of Canada. His name's Frazier. I loved to death. He buys everyone, every pedal, each one of every, I have people that have collections of frost shines. I have people that proudly show off their collection of frost shines. And so like when
Pedro: That's awesome. And those are also, let me just give you props, dude. They look amazing.
Eric: very OCD, ADD and dyslexic. So I'm like a whole mix everything. So I have to like stop myself what I'm doing and double check everything and like go on a tangent and come back to it. And so like, I try to make sure everything looks like, I want it to be like, when you see one of my pedals, it's like, man, that guy must be made overseas. That's a whole huge company. And if you're like, ⁓ he's from Corpus like, like, yeah, they look
Pedro: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they really stand out.
Eric: good like yeah like everything has I want and then like a lot of it to like lot of people don't know a lot of my pedals I'm like they're not religious but they have a lot of that good and evil artwork in it there's a lot of old woodcut 17th century art in it there's stuff that I've had drawn into it like it's just this whole I don't know I really I'm really happy with the look of them I'm really I'm really happy about that.
Pedro: I think it's really hard too, right, for like an artist to like look at something and be like, man, I'm really satisfied with this.
Eric: ⁓ yeah, like the worst thing for me is designing a pedal. Like it seriously is because I don't think they're like, know my pedals are good and I know my customers are smart because they love them and have like these crazy setups. like, man, that's crazy. My pedal fits in your just mainframe of a pedal
Pedro: Yeah.
Eric: And like, ⁓ yes, one of the best things this and this and that. And so I'm very lucky to have that. It's it's a wild thing. But yeah, like take a lot of pride in. I take a lot of pride in the pedals. I took a lot of pride in the artwork. And the the problem with me is like, I don't ever think it's good enough until somebody finally tells me to stop. Like with the bass mountain, I had to give it to Chris or bases of Switchblade and just let him run through it. He's like, yep, this is good.
Pedro: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Eric: You don't need to do anything more with the Morningstar. Dude, I sent that thing to Holt of Exodus. I sent it to Anthony of God's I sent it to a couple of demo dudes. I sent it to a bunch of players and I had them just play on it and tell me Ryan Fluff, Brian Bruce. I'm sorry. I was like, just me you don't like. They don't tell me what you like. Tell me what you don't like about it. And they got cards. I write it down.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: I need you to just flat out tell me what you hate about it. And that's what I changed. it seemed to work. And it wasn't anything that I thought that needed to be changed. It's just like, you need to change the EQ curve on this. ⁓ this is a little more aggressive than it should be. Hey, dude, this hits my DAW so hard. You need to back off on some of the decibels. And like.
Pedro: How did you out to those artists? Like, hey man, this is this is what I build. Can you try it? Like, how do you go about them?
Eric: I think it's the same way I go about meeting you and everybody else. just don't be a dick. ⁓ so, ⁓ so luckily like I've been fortunate ⁓ know a lot of musicians. Like fortunate to know like the guys in Kyle. Like those are always one of my favorite bands, Matt Pike of Iron Fire. Like a lot of these people like I've met either by mutual friends ⁓ and just but with like,
Pedro: Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
Eric: Gary Holt, he reached out to me and we talked about a few things. I think it was about a cat video or something. It was randomness. He's great. so and Ryan Bruce, I met him through a mutual builder and just stayed in contact. And so what I try not to do is ask people for anything. ⁓ I offer them they want to check something out. I've always noticed that like when you. ⁓
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: When you friend somebody higher up in the hierarchy of whatever it is, when you start acting, I'm fortunate enough to know Sterling, he recorded a lot of the Pantera albums. Grady Champion, Dimes Tech, we talk on Facebook. It's because when I talk to these people, never fanboy and I never act like I never act like they mean anything to me in a way. Like I try not to be like, ⁓ my God, I'm so happy to finally meet you. You know, you've such a huge inspiration in my life. I'm sure they fucking heard that. They know that ⁓ one of the best examples is like the way the way I roll through life is my buddies ⁓ since I mutation playing with ⁓ Everclear at Sproosters. wanted make an announcement. I was like, OK, let's just go.
Pedro: Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
Eric: He's like, what do you mean? was like, well, you're Logan of whatever fucking station he was at at that time. Let's just go say you're going to make an announcement to announce a sensation on the thing. He's like, you think that'll work? I'm like, yeah, it'll work. Follow me. So we just walk and the guy's like, hey, I can help you. It's like, yeah, this is Logan. He needs to go do the announcements for sensation. We're in that back room. If you want me to go get them, I can go get them now or we can just deal with this however you want to deal with it. He's like, I got to make a call on the thing. I was like, that's cool. Make a call. I don't care. And I just waited and called. He's like, ⁓ okay. Yeah. Yeah. Go up there. Logan went up there. He announced some salutation. hung out backstage. I got things like it's if you just pretend you're there, you're going to be there. If you just pretend that you're supposed to be in that crowd, you're going to be in that crowd. But if you stick out with a sore thumb and you make yourself known and seen. Yeah. So like with all these, all these musician buddies and all these demo guys,
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: I'm not asking them for anything. I'm not like, holy shit, I need you to check out my pedals because if you check out my pedal, you're gonna love it. It's gonna be the greatest thing you've ever heard, like every other fucking person online that does. You just be their friends. And then when it comes time to something like with the Morningstar, I'm like, hey, if you wanna check this out, cool, but I got this pedal I'm building out Ryan. I sent him Switchblade stuff ⁓ pedals. like, here you go. He's like, what's this for? Whatever. Do you want me a demo? I'm like, no. I don't need you to demo it. If you want to demo it, cool. Like we can figure it out later. OK, dude, thanks. Like, yeah, cool. Later. And that was it. ⁓ it's this mutual respect that you have to have for somebody. And then if you just pretend that you're there and you just act like you've always been there, you'll be surprised what happens. But if you act like a fangirl and blow your fucking load right on the front of the first announcement. Yeah. So I mean.
Pedro: Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: It's all about attitude and life really. And that's just really how I've done it. And so with all these demo dudes, all these people, it's just being a friend over time, showing them respect, commenting on things, liking things, having conversations with them, but never asking them and just being there. goes a long ways. ⁓ wild.
Pedro: That's awesome. You're talking about earlier, like you had this one pedal, but he also had this one pedal and they didn't sound the same, although they're supposed to be the same pedal. So how do you keep that from happening on your pedals? Like, how do you, how do you balance like hands on quality standards with like, like for example, you were having issues with the tariffs, right? You've, you've having to spend more money, having to do this, you have to do that. So how do you, how you keep yourself?
Eric: This worked for me. Hmm? Mm-mm.
Pedro: Not accountable in a way, but I guess accountable for to make sure that every every pedal sounds the same
Eric: I don't change what I do just because prices change. eat those tariffs and I eat everything. All my pedals made with a high standard of like a certain degree of allowed tolerance. And with allowed with parts, you have like a 5 % allowed tolerance, a 10 % allowed tolerance up to 25%. And so what that means is remember I said earlier than that number matters. Like if it's a 470K,
Pedro: Mm.
Eric: If you have 5 % tolerance, it's going to drift around there. Some will have a 25 % tolerance and those are like the carbon ones and those will drift a lot. So the main thing to do really is to go through your charts. And that's what I do. I have a place that I order and I go through all my charts and I look through the longevity of things. I look through the tolerances and I make sure that I get the top grade stuff ever, even though it's not always the cheapest. especially with the tariffs adding more because a lot of stuff like you can't get a lot of these parts in the United States and it's not because we don't want to make them it's because we don't have the regulations to make them we actually cannot make them because of CPA or FD not FDA but you know all those kind of I mean mean the pedals the fuzz pedals got beef but they ain't got that kind of beef but uh
Pedro: Mmm. Unless you want to eat them whatever. Ugh.
Eric: It's like you have all these regulations and you just, can't make a lot of things here. It's just it. When we changed in the seventies and we moved all our manufacturing overseas, like we put laws and regulations of things that would like. That's why, like you, see people in like like cities and stuff like boiling, circuit boards and pulling them and just like sitting outside and everybody's just boiling them and soldered.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: rehashing everything because they don't have those laws. They don't have these certain things where they in regulations and a lot of the materials can't be mined here. A lot of the materials like cobalt and stuff like that is mined over like lithium's here, but like a lot of that's overseas and we don't, we won't pay the money for it. Like we're used to a cheap economy right now. So I have to order the most clearance and stuff from Japan and Germany and Not Taiwan anymore, but a lot of ⁓ a lot of my parts like I use a lot of Panasonic capacitors and those are from Japan and then my worth capacitors are from Germany and then my Yago resistors are from Taiwan. No, yeah I think there might be from Taiwan have to double check but like you only have a place a certain place that makes these parts So it's either stick to a strict formula to make sure everybody gets exactly everything they ordered or start ordering cheap stuff off of Amazon and eBay. Like whatever resisters this and this and that, whoever has bulk and that, like a lot of people are doing. And I understand that, but you're gonna have quality issues. And a lot of people like, I'm repairing a lot of companies, dude. Like I get a lot of people that send me stuff like, can you repair this? Hey, I need you to adjust this. Hey, I just bought this off a reverb. This isn't working and the, builder's not responding to me. Can you do it since you're in the U S and so it's yeah, it's just, it's crazy. And it's, there's a lot of fake components now because of COVID. Like there's a lot of fake components. is wild, especially I see chips and most FETs and stuff like that.
Pedro: That sucks.
Eric: It's insane. So I mean, you have to spend the extra money, you have to spend the extra dime and time and just really just print out or go through all this tech sheets and make sure you get the best that you can and fork over the cash. Like I'm not raising prices. I still haven't raised prices. I can't. I can't raise prices in this economy. I mean, I'm selling a $200 preamp like that or the 240 is how much the AOR is. mean,
Pedro: bright.
Eric: That's that's a good chunk of change, especially if people are still making $7.50 an hour or $9 an hour or they bring it home $300 a week. That's a week's paycheck. So I cannot I cannot give them shit if they're if they're spending a week to buy a pedal for me. Can't I have to make sure that they get the best because I would be pissed like in and that's why. Well, that's why everything has a full warrant lifetime warranty of manufacturer things like if something happens.
Pedro: Yeah. Sure.
Eric: I will fix that right away or as fast as I can because I got a backlog right now. But yeah, it's it's it's crazy. It's crazy right now. It sucks, but it is what it is.
Pedro: So where do you see FrostGym electronics heading into the future? Let's say the next two to five years. Because you say you're still building out of home, right? So you want to expand the office? Do you want to go anything bigger? Do you want to keep exactly where it is? What is vision?
Eric: it's it we we The my goal is earthquake or I would like to be earthquake or devices. I would like to be somewhere that's in a bigger facility. Like at one point we had plans and we were about to move into a bigger facility and then just economic timing and situations that happened with ⁓ including tariffs. Like stopped a lot of that. So yeah, my goal is a large facility hiring as many people as I can. I would like to have a I would like to have a business where I can buy health insurance for people. Like, I want that. I wanna have a that has seven people building guitar pedals. Because like, if I can give somebody the opportunity to do what I do and make a living on it, geez dude, that'd be amazing. This is most ridiculous thing ever. Like, I get to stay home and build guitar pedals. Like, my wife, she lost, well they had to let her go and...
Pedro: Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: November so since November to now it's just been me taking care of everything with guitar pedals and ⁓ it's but we're able to make it work and I'm just like so fortunate that I can do this and I I can stay home and Be a little if I want to and and and and like cuz some you don't want to do anything and like I can actually like
Pedro: Hmm. Yeah.
Eric: this day I don't feel like doing anything and I won't. I'll jump on my computer and I'll do artwork or layouts or work on schematics or something else. So it's a beautiful thing. So if I can give somebody that opportunity, Jesus dude, that'd be amazing. the dream. That really is the dream. I want to have that here in town. And especially at school because when people like they actually check out the pedals, like, where are you from? I'm from Forkess. Really? Like, yeah. You build them in Corpus? Like, yeah. Not Austin? Like, no, Corpus. It's crazy, right? Who would have thought Corpus? And so I could give to give like, uh, another, uh, manufacturing thing out of this town. was just something kind of cool. I like, I like Corpus. I love this town. I mean, I have my issues. I got my issues with every town, but like, at least it's not Austin. If you've ever driven in, if you've ever driven it, mean, well, sorry.
Pedro: Yeah. Yeah, I do. Sure, yeah.
Eric: post 2005 Austin, at least it's not, know, post 2005 Austin. Like a beautiful town and it has a lot of possibilities. just, I don't know, change the thinking on how this town goes. ⁓ find us some water and that would be thing, you who needs that, right? It's just water.
Pedro: Yeah Yeah, let's fight us to water ⁓
Eric: Yeah, we'll figure that out later. Let's build pedals first and then we'll find out about water. I like that.
Pedro: Yes, let's get the priority straight. of pedals, so got to choose one of your pedals and that would be the pedal for you. Which one is that?
Eric: It'll always be the architect. Just because like that pedal is the one that I always wanted to make. Like wanted to, I love my Laney AOR so much. that was like, when I found that amp, I'm like, ⁓ that's what an amp says. Like this thing is just mean. It's just heavy. Like the clean is beautiful on it so I can put pedals into it. And that's the amp that got me into pedals really is because I went from my crank. I have a crank rev up like this and got that Laney and I'm like, okay, go through the clean channel because I was a big sword fan and iron fire. ⁓ my God, my brain, no, sleep, sorry, Matt Pike, sleep in and ⁓ fan. And they both use that Laney AOR. So I finally found one of my buddy Garrett found or Barrett found me one and it home and I was like, this is it. And so I've always wanted to create that sound. And so with that, like the AOR I feel is like that is our pedal. The mountain is what really started it. The mountain and the mass is what started this business. But the AORs, that's it. And everybody that's played it really loves that pedal. They really seem to take to it. I got a, I actually have all the pedal. I got most of them at Guitar Center right now. It's cool, they let me, they sent me up a glass.
Pedro: Man, I gotta check that pedal out. I haven't had a chance to play it. That is sick.
Eric: a column and they got all the pedals in there. And so there's a, have a limited white snow blind. It's all white graphics, white knobs. Go there and check that one out and just put it through a clean app and just go for it. It's loud. It's got a lot of game too. It's cause it's a preamp of a, of an amp. It's the actual preamp of an amp instead of tubes. I'm using a, a JFETs and just turn them up. But I mean, that's a whole nother talk by how those work.
Pedro: Do you have any funny or weird stories from customers that bought your pedals? Either on a gig, they told you something about a gig, that something went wrong or something went wrong, but it turned out to be right. Something specific about your pedals that you thought it was a wild story.
Eric: I've had I've had two ⁓ I mean there's there's there's there's a lot of them But two of my favorite ones one is from a band called toke and they played It was the locks Vegas Psycho and it was this really killer festival back in the day, right? And so they get to the venue all the amps are blown and so they don't have anything they're like freaking out but
Pedro: my god.
Eric: The guitarist I sent it to him or he purchased it. He had the solo pedal. He's like, dude, that's the only literally the only thing I had. And I plugged it into a fender that they had like combo or something like that. And he ripped it through and like it's like this crowd and it's just like 10,000 people. And it's just like, it's just wailing. He's like, here's your pedals. my God. It's amazing. And so that was rad. Another one was
Pedro: Holy shit.
Eric: I sent a pedal out because I get a lot of international orders and I sent a pedal. This guy hits me up. He's like, hey, this mass is not working. I was like, what do mean? It's not working. I test and that's the thing. Like all my pedals, I drill each case myself. I test each pedal myself. Everything is just everything is done by hand. So I'm like, what do you mean? It's not working. Like I tested it myself. I know it's working. He's like, no, it's it's just messed up. I don't understand. I was like, well, there's a trim pot on the inside that controls the fuzz. Maybe I didn't max it out. He's like, no, it's just not working. was like, well, open it up, push to make sure the trim is pushed. So he opens it up and he sends me back this abuse of abuse of email. And he is just like, I don't understand how the hell you could send this to me. And it's just this long, just just intense. like, what the fuck? And then it shows a picture all the. Like everything like all these little components and stuff like that were just pushed down pushed down and broke and I was like what the f- yeah I was like what whoa whoa whoa whoa what's going on and he showed that and then he showed me the box well the box had a bunch of red tape all over it and I was like I didn't put red tape on that box so they called UPS and apparently it got flagged for a bomb in their system
Pedro: Yeah. ⁓ my god.
Eric: So they took it all apart and they had like, I guess the squad or somebody pushed to it and to see if that it go and they pushed it and nothing happened. And then they realized it was a guitar pedal because they flipped over the box and it shows frostbite electronics and they went to the site. Yeah. So I got flagged as a bomb.
Pedro: Jesus fucking Christ.
Eric: So ⁓ he, yeah, and so he hits me up and he's like, yeah, I just got off. He sent me this this from UPS, this whole worded emails. Yeah, apparently they they flagged it as a bomb and they had to try to detonate it. That's what it was. And they tried to detonate it by pushing it into because what it was is here we go. Is one of these. ⁓
Pedro: That's one way to ignite a gig. Mmm.
Eric: And so these little resistors look like wire or wireless remotes. And so they thought that was like a wireless remote and they're pushing it to detonate and see if it would go. Yeah, it's insane. So that one was fun. But yeah, I mean, I get a lot of things like people like wearing boots and I don't have the pedals over there.
Pedro: That is cool.
Eric: He's playing and he comes down and hits the pedal, the case too hard and his boot goes right through the case. Like, cause he used the heel of his boot. Yeah. I was like a cowboy boot popped it down and the yeah. And there's a lot, dude, there's a lot. And the whole switch system, like just push through the case and just crack the whole thing.
Pedro: ⁓ shit. Cowboy doom, huh? Holy shit.
Eric: He's like, yeah, I didn't know what to do. It just all loud feedback. And like, I'm sure it was. You done broke the switch off the damn thing like you. They're aluminum cases. They can take a beating, but cowboy boots are thick, especially that heel. And when you come down, yeah, the ship break. Yeah.
Pedro: That's a late, well, we, we will have to schedule another talk to talk about cowboy doom and, and, and amps.
Eric: Oh, yes, I'll run. Yeah. Oh, cool. We'll talk about why I won't build guitar amps. It's this it's it's it's another hour and a half featuring itself. I love guitar amps, but man, yeah, I'll do that. I'll do the small gist. You're to buy a three thousand dollar mason bill year or a five hundred dollar fifty one fifty. You know what mean? You know what mean? You're going to look into a three thousand dollar model or a three thousand dollar
Pedro: Yeah.
Eric: super lead overdrive, even though the Saldana SLS are amazing. It's it's ⁓ of the world. Yeah, we can go into that. We can go to amp talks on the next one. I've got schematics and I'll blow your mind about how everything is pretty much the same. It all depends on speakers, mics, placements and stuff like that. You can get every tone you've ever looked for, especially with the EQ in the loop. And that's a whole whole another story. It's great.
Pedro: That's awesome, dude. Man, thank you so much. before I finish, I honestly, like legitimately, I've thought about going up to wherever is Mr. Agnator lives, Bruce, he does amp building classes. And I love that tweaker so much that I almost, almost like I looked into how much it would cost to fly up there just to go take that class. Because you pay for the class, you take the class, you build the amp and you bring the amp home. ⁓
Eric: Hmm? Do it. Yeah, you bring it. It's like and so with that client like, my God, he is he is like so he's really one of the mad scientists of the amp world.
Pedro: I am trying so hard to get him to come over here talk to me, man. I'm trying. I would love to have him. Love to have him.
Eric: It. That would be that would be amazing. As far as I know, I don't think he does too many interviews because I don't see that many on YouTube. But he's like, if you have a if you have a second check out the synergy system, that's his ethos is based off of that. And it's the whole because he did the the Randall MTS system where it was like the Randall amp. And I think the Kirk Hammett had one, too. And you could take out all these different modules and put them in and all that kind of stuff. That's him. Like that's that.
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, ⁓ shit.
Eric: That's, that's where a lot of it started. Well, it is.
Pedro: You know, we were talking about Tremonti earlier. He by their Synergy amps. Swear by it. Swear by it.
Eric: ⁓ yeah. Well, it's when you have to think about it like this, like you have you the core like the quad cortex and all those and those make those sounds right. And so all it is really in your is getting the right EQ adjustments ⁓ to make sound like that album. OK, so when you're when you have something like the Synergy system and you have all these different amp modules, You can pick and choose where you're doing these different kind of EQ curves, like how a Marshall is very mid-driven or a Mesa is very cut and stuff like that. And then you can now, you can choose your power section and that like, even though the rack systems have always been around and you've always had those options, like the power amp section is the most important. So when you can do like Mesa, like a dual rectifier and
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric: Like an angle power section even if you wanted to go cheap and do like a solid state power section, you have these options now because originally like it's the preamp that matters of all the tones. So like when you, when you could only bit like by the big rack system and like this is the rack of this and you can only do that. Like you were so limited, but with the synergy system, you can just ⁓ this power section, try that and just really mix and match because
Pedro: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: It's really all the same, man. And so like when I hear people get like kind of weird about that system, like you like the quad cortex, it doesn't even have tubes in it. It just has an EQ curve. It just has this adjustment to it. What you're hearing is the IR because there's a there's a guy that does a video. It's the pod bean. Do you remember those red ones? It's a pod bean versus a quad cortex versus the line six. and they all sound the same. The only difference is the IR response. When the IR response and the IR response is the EQ curve and the IR response is the speaker, that's all that matters is the speaker and the mic. And so once you're able to adjust that to where you're at, you can get anything to sound whatever you want. So like with the Synergy systems, you have these options to make whatever you want and then fine tune it with your speaker setup. And then you have the perfect setup. There's, always so many random things.
Pedro: Yeah, I would love to own one of those. You know, I actually sold my previous amp to be able to afford the QC because I was just playing so many bands and I doing, couldn't afford have a bass amp, ⁓ a amp and all this pedals, like I couldn't do it. So I'd sold it to get the QC that way I would have these kind of one and all in one unit and just be really versatile. And another thing too is that I didn't want to...
Eric: Hmm? Hmm? Mm-mm.
Pedro: be taking and ahead ⁓ gigs anymore. ⁓
Eric: No. the is a beautiful fucking creation. I'm so glad that they have that thing. And that's what it's made for, for what you need it for. That's exactly what it's made for. when have so many tones that you have to cover and create, and you have so many different genres, or so many different approaches to music that you have to be able to knock out, your quad cortex is perfect. It's perfect. That's what it's meant for.
Pedro: Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: The the the the people that don't need a quad cortex are like the misfit cover band like they only play miss you know what I mean? Like or or even the Metallica like the like the early thrash is like the power trip and lot of the new guys are coming out. They just have that Marshall to and they sound exactly the same. They don't need a quad cortex unless they're flying out. But when you have somebody that needs to be a multi instrument
Pedro: Sure. ⁓
Eric: like, that needs to fill a bunch of space. Yeah, it's perfect for that. Like you can't, this whole weird tube amps versus modelers and like it's, they're the same. They're, they're, it's a tool. It's not, it's not the, amp that's going to make me sound good. I know that for damn sure. It's, it's, it's how I apply either my ears and my fingers to what we're using. Cause if you can't turn your knobs on your amp, then what's the point? Like that's, that's one thing that I always find like,
Pedro: Sure.
Eric: When see a bunch of bands go live and they got either like a solid state amp, like they'll hit House of Rock and they got like a solid state combo and I'll go up there like, man, you need to turn this down and adjust this. Well, why is like, cause you're in this different head space. You're not at your house anymore. You need to adjust your amp to this. And so, yeah, I mean, it's all the same. You just got to turn your knobs and figure it out. It's all EQs, man. It really is. It's, It's nothing like it's nothing magical. It's not hard surgery. It's just me. Hmm. That's how I feel about it. Yeah, I mean, in like with ⁓ The the only difference is feel really, and it depends on how you want to feel like if you just want to ⁓ at the front of the house and you're joining and you're ripping it. Cool. Fuck you do that. But if you want to feel the amp, if you want to be immersed in the tone. ⁓
Pedro: That's it. Yes.
Eric: a tube amp and fuzz pedals are the way to go. I mean, it's it's it's what the approach of how you want it to be for you personally. Like the the the audience will always get what the sound guy gets. You know what mean? Like unless you're you're playing in a pub, but if you're playing on like stages that we play, it's not really what we get to hear. Like the sound guy is going to adjust the the mids, the lows, the presence for the front of the house. So I mean.
Pedro: Right, yeah.
Eric: It's It's how ⁓
Pedro: I agree. Sure. Yeah, Stage volume and all that. And then he turns around and you turn it back up.
Eric: That's that's that's one of the fun things that I like with my old amps is a sound guys fucking hate me because bass amps, they all have the direct guys in the back and you got a direct one. Nope. You're to have to get out of my. Sorry about that. it. But yeah, next time we'll hit up and we'll talk about ants and all that good stuff. There's... I could ramble for years about this kind of stuff. not too sure if you got anything useful on this this interview, so I apologize if I just run my mouth.
Pedro: Yeah, man. ⁓ dude, a lot. And more about just conversation. ⁓ It necessarily have to be about a certain one thing, but you know a about a lot when it comes to music and amps and pedals. So this was beyond. I was from as you were talking. So thank you very much.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Next time we can even talk about toys. I make toys. I can tell you how to make resin. Yeah, I used to have a 3D printer, but I do sculpting and molding and all that kind of stuff. I used to make toys for the pedals when they would come out. They'd all get at each individual like little monster. Yeah, make fun stuff. Yeah, yeah. I got useless knowledge to fill the sky.
Pedro: ⁓ shit. Yeah, yeah, That's sick, I don't know about useless. You're a mad tinker and a mad thinker, my friend.
Eric: Yeah, maybe. I appreciate you having me on.
Pedro: Alright guys, please, please, please, please go check out Eric, Frostjohn Electronics. Check out his music, throat locus, switchblade Jesus, all great stuff. Thank you once again, man. I appreciate your time.
Eric: Yeah, definitely was a blast. If you ever want to do it again, like I said, I'll waste your, I'll waste an hour and a half this time.
Pedro: ⁓ we will. There is no, again, there's no wasting time. was like a learning experience, Really, thank you.
Eric: pretty sure I got to do some crackle on some cases though. Maybe next time we can get into some crackling. I can show you how to do my crackle cases too. That's always fun. ⁓ ⁓ is the best. If I can get more people to buy crackling, that'd be good.
Pedro: fucking do it. Maybe next time we do it and I'll take my rig over there and I'll just take my camera and you can show my show right there.
Eric: Ooh! ⁓ Yeah, I mean also I don't mind driving over to your place too, I'm pretty easy. I mean it's just Portland, so it's not that fun. I Chris lives over there too, so I gotta go there. I get to hang out with you and Chris, I'm solid. That's perfect. Yeah. Awesome, bud. Yep, you have a good one.
Pedro: ⁓ there you go. There you go. We'll set up a date and we'll do that. Later, brother. Thank you.
Eric: Hmm. ⁓ damn, nice. ⁓ no, mean yeah, mean yeah, right. At it wasn't CC's. mean, I don't know. Is CC's better than Gatty's? I know.
Pedro: I don't know man. ⁓ don't know. ⁓ like it's pretty new here in Portland, right? And I haven't been so I wanted to go. Dan wanted to go. ⁓ have kids. There's games so we went. And then I want to say about 30 minutes after we ate, which was like one o'clock, I started getting clammy.
Eric: It's all trash. Mm-hmm.
Pedro: I started getting clammy. Something just wasn't s-
Eric: When you're when your insides start sweating, like you don't understand it, but like all of sudden, like you're just like, oh, what's wrong?
Pedro: I was like, why did I eat? And I was the only one. The kids ate pizza. My mom ate pizza. My stepdad ate pizza. Everybody ate pizza. But how do you know?
Eric: You're the pasta, didn't you? I know I know when that shit sits out when that shit sits out for even even just like even if you get the plate right even if you're just like you know I'm just gonna have a little taste of the pasta that's it it's done you done you done tasted the E. coli and it just went straight down it's just like party city it's like let's multiply you had the pasta
Pedro: I'm ⁓ dude. Dude, that's fucking hilarious.
Eric: Never have the pasta.
Pedro: I guess I made the mistake of having the pasta. I had the sun-dried tomato pasta.
Eric: Get pasta. That's even the worst one, because it looks like it's just been glazed over, but that's not the glaze, that's just all the germs that was just like...
Pedro: ⁓ man, that's funny, dude. My stomach hurts because I'm laughing and my stomach also hurts from the food. So I got home around 1.45 because I'm like, have to go. So let's get out of here. And then I went immediately to the restroom and then I made myself some tea and I took some meds because I also got like this frontal lobe headache. So. ⁓
Eric: ⁓ yeah, of course, yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Mine, my, yeah. Mine hit me. Thursday. And like for the most part, because like I'm just always working, working, working, working, working. And so, yeah, it hit me Thursday, dude. And like we, had to do a bunch of hospital stuff in the morning. So she to like, Hey, let's go get some food because we haven't eaten all day. It's been nothing but like surgery stuff. And so I'm driving and it hits. And I'm just like,
Pedro: But I'm feeling a little bit better though. Mm-hmm.
Eric: I'm gonna die right here. I just need to close my eyes and like I need something to bleed out, drain out. It just feels like there's a knife in me. She's like, what's wrong? like, I don't know. I don't know. And it just hit me so fucking hard. And then like the yeah, I think it was yesterday. I today's no yeah, I guess it was Friday. And I just laid in bed and just tried to like, like, we can we can set myself just try to like fight it off. Yeah, I don't understand what
Pedro: you
Eric: I guess it's cedar cedar time in this in this area.
Pedro: Yeah, it's allergy time right now for everybody. Like my right ear just clicks and pops. Like I open my jaw, pops. I close my jaw, pops. And if I don't take or whatever, it's just popping all day long. It's terrible.
Eric: And shut it. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. I've had a tendonitis ring. it's like a faucet run. And 24-7, right? And I've had it since 2017. And it happened because I got some kind of sinus infection and it pushed up against my eardrum. And it was like a ring for two And I was going fucking insane. This was like 2017, 2018.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: And I finally got it down. I took a bunch of all these different kind of pills and ⁓ and to your blood flowing. I got going. But any time like some like hardcore sinus saying like this now, dude, left side, everything like it's like I can and it's like a squishy sound. It's like ⁓ wet on the It's just all inflamed and ⁓ all draining.
Pedro: And that's for people that like yourself and I, like we like to play and sing. Like it's just, it's terrible.
Eric: Yeah It's terrible you have these crazy signs like ⁓ dude if I got a sing I have to like I gotta tell my life. I'm like I feel like Prince. ⁓ mean, all right The whole day I need to like drink coffee and they take a couple of showers I need to drain it out because if I'm on stage trying to push and I have that headache Like it feels like it's behind my eye like just it's the worst so ⁓
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Eric: Sinus things are crazy. it's all like it messes with, know, it pushes on your temple and pushes on equilibrium. It like will make you dizzy. It's crazy. It's crazy. It's just like it's just a little bit of swelling.
Pedro: Yeah, I relate dude Yeah. Yeah. I relate. ⁓ Yeah. relate. I totally relate to it. Like my, feel bad for my wife because she gets like migraines that is literally for the whole day. She's literally unavailable.
Eric: Yeah, like I, I'll get these weird little star migraines where it's just like half my half my vision is just this wavy kind of, and it's just like maybe one eye. And I was telling my mom about, she's like, I'll get those migraines too. And like, that's what a migraine is. She's like, well, they're all different, but yeah, I'll get those. I was like, yeah, those hit and I'm done for the day. And I'm like, my wife's like, you want to go do something like I can't see. can't do anything. I think I'm dying again. She's like, you got a migraine? Yeah, I think I'm dying again. She's like, okay. Yeah, it's like every fucking time. Like, I deleted all my history. I saved my passwords. I slipped them under the door. Just leave it alone and die. I'll be okay.
Pedro: Again. ⁓
Eric: hit my customers up, let them know what happened.
Pedro: ⁓ jeez. Let him know I went out. You know, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, with a migraine. It's I feel for her, dude. It's it's it's crazy. It's I mean, it's it's all like, you know, nervous systems. And, you know, I mean, not like a I grew up kind of religious, but I'm not like a huge, huge religious. I'm a spiritual person like the body itself is a crazy contraption how everything works. And like, yeah, man, like when the brain hits or migraines or nerve endings or something like that, it'll drop you. I'm like, I don't know how it works. It's like when my back hurts, like I don't know, it just fucking hurts. Like I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, so I feel for her.
Pedro: Yeah. Well, you know, ⁓ how are you?
Eric: I am 43 this year. Yeah, I'm getting old.
Pedro: Yeah, it's like I've I tell people this and I feel like everybody relates I for some reason when I hit 30 dude, I don't know what it was man I don't know like they did all it all started going downhill and a lot of people can relate I've had some people say oh wait till you hit 40 and it goes even more and I'm almost there I'm gonna be 37 in two weeks
Eric: ⁓ my god. Yeah. You know, it's not, it's, everything always hurts though. Like everything just always hurts, but it just depends on how much a dumb ass you were in your younger years. like, dude, in a high school, like we would hang on the front of my buddy's car and he would drive, like he lived in Bentree and he would drive around the whole like area until he got to the park and he'd slam on his brakes and we would fly off. We would like,
Pedro: you Ha
Eric: We would be on the back of like a pickup truck and try to like jump into other other people's pickup truck. Like so you did stupid things. So it just depends on how level stupid like skateboarding. I know skateboarding ruined me. BMX ruined me. Football most certainly ruined me. So but like besides that, like my level of fun and enthusiasm, I feel like I'm younger. I feel like all I you know.
Pedro: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: It's awesome. It's great. But like you it's cool. It's also cool because when you hit like I feel like when you hit that level of 40, you just you just don't give a shit about certain things and like, you know, people's opinions too. But like, you know, it's cool because you had this level of freedom. You're feeling young. You're like, hell yeah. Fuck. Yeah, I'm going to take the day. And then you wake up in the morning and like your whole body is just locked. You know, you're like.
Pedro: That's cool. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Like, nope.
Eric: I'm gonna make some coffee and just like you know see how goes
Pedro: man, yeah, like the other day my wife looked at me, she's like, are you okay? Because I crouched down to put a guitar, pick up something. I don't remember what it was, ⁓ as I stood up it was pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Everything started popping.
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, back neck, everything random, random arms gonna pop when you're standing up. You're like, how is that like just twisting popping? It's wild. You know, I think it's just just how you destroyed yourself as a kid and like, you know, you need to take vitamins and minerals and all. I mean, our bodies are made up of stardust pretty much, you know, we're phosphorus and magnesium and iron and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, as you. Yeah, well, like.
Pedro: Sure. Yeah. a bunch of vitamin pills with water and flesh.
Eric: Yeah, yeah, dude, that's what I'm saying. The whole body's a crazy fucking thing. But as you're living, not only using the restroom and stuff, but sweating, you're losing all these minerals and vitamins and all these things. And if you're like me that don't eat his vegetables and just loves cheeseburgers and french fries and loves grilling every day, I don't consume those vitamins like I should. And I've just been depleting them. since 1982. I mean, it is what it is.
Pedro: You You started losing the day we were born. just like, just, yeah.
Eric: Yeah, it's crazy. Like I was talking about how my my ear was messed up. Like it keeps pushing this one out because it's so like swollen inside. Yeah, like I can't keep this this dude in. It's fucking annoying. But so I life. Wild.
Pedro: ⁓ wow. Yeah, man. I remember like in the early days of Rez, you know, I'm like, okay, we play the music well, we sound good, we look good, but what can we do on stage to look badass? You know, what can we do? Like, so to me, back in the day, I started watching these metalcore bands doing like the guitar flip, right? Like flipping the guitar behind the back. I can't remember like how many times I hit myself with the back of the head doing that.
Eric: Yeah.
Pedro: And so I was like, okay, this is not good. I'm going to get a TBI. Let me stop doing that. And then I saw another guy. I don't remember what band or who the guy stood up on the top of his amp and he literally jumped off. And I saw another guy doing the same thing off the bass drum. He would get on the bass drum and he would jump off the bass drum. So then that's what I started doing. And now my knees, I feel it because of that for sure.
Eric: Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude, I bet I remember like jumping off the stage at like House of Rock onto the concrete like in the early like it just to be like, yeah, yeah, cool. Like I'm walking walking in front of seven people play. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, look, I want to walk to that person that's just hanging out and like, oh, my God. Oh, dude, the the the last
Pedro: Look at me, I can play and jump at the same time.
Eric: Throat Locust Show, we played with Obscura and a bunch of awesome bands. And so were the first ones up and this hilarious. And so we went over to QBR real quick and ⁓ we're our way back and, know, Corpus Roads just like the best. They've always been the smoothest ⁓ and just they take very care of roads. ⁓ And I love it, downtown. Especially, yeah.
Pedro: Yes, great use of the taxpayer money here in Corpus.
Eric: And so I walked off and like I'm walking along the concrete and there's just this pothole like I've never seen a pothole in this town and there's just this pothole and I just rolled my ankle before we start playing right and I rolled it so hard it felt like shit just kind of like stretch popped like it wasn't broken it wasn't bad but like I felt it right I've yeah well it was the wall foot
Pedro: Like you just felt something wasn't like completely right.
Eric: too, right? So like we get up on stage, I load my shit, I'm limping like a fucking old man. Get up there, we play our shit. didn't like as I'm playing at the adrenaline hit the walls go and I'm like, yeah, do do do do fucking hey. And so like it's just rocking and fucking killing, right? And so we get done. I'm like, hell fucking yeah. And I because you know, as a musician, you have to have the heaviest fucking
Pedro: Ha ha ha. you
Eric: gear ever right you need old tube amps and 412s and seven of them at least and so fucking grabbing the thing walking off and then I put pressure on I was like ah fuck you and so dude just real quick and like young or whatever would have rolled that foot I would have kicked somebody in the face would have jumped off on stage and like yeah look at my foot and like it'd been fine now at fucking 43 like I text the dudes like
Pedro: Yeah, it responded really quick.
Eric: I loaded all my shit, everybody's up front, people are over the merch, like the merch table's pretty packed up and people are hanging out. like to go and hang out with people. Music the greatest thing in the world to play to enjoy. The other part is hanging out with people. It's just the new like that. I love, I fucking love that part. So there's all these people there and I'm looking at them like nah. They got it. They're good. So I texted him. I was like, Hey guys, I loaded up. I'm heading home. And then like, are you leaving? I like, yeah, because I usually I don't leave right away. I usually hang out at least for the for the whole fucking show. And so I'm like driving, trying to like put gas on it. I'm like, it was annoying.
Pedro: Mm-mm. Man, I had a similar thing happen to me. We were playing a Fitzgerald, I think it's in San Antonio. And I think from the green room, there's like this long staircase that leads straight into the stage. I remember coming down the staircase just quick and I put my foot down as soon as you hit the stage and I felt something pop. ⁓ And it turned out I had partially
Eric: Yep.
Pedro: torn my Achilles right there then.
Eric: Really? ⁓
Pedro: this was right we went on.
Eric: Yeah, always right before you go on. It has to be. Yeah.
Pedro: right before we go. So the whole show, I shit you not dude, I put my right foot on top of my left foot and I'm literally standing like a fucking owl playing. Yeah, just literally like just looking like an owl playing guitar and because every time I would put my foot down it was just like immediately shocking pain and then when we were done I had
Eric: like a goddamn penguin to everybody. Fucking shit. I love that.
Pedro: At the time, Paul Garcia was, when he was still alive, he came over. He's like, are you okay? Cause you just stood in that one spot the whole show. I'm like, dude, I think I fucked something up. Now I knew it was my Achilles. So he helped me get off the stage, man. And I took my shoe off. My shoe was, my foot was swollen and the whole drive home. Yeah. I had my foot up on the dashboard. Cause it was just so swollen. Got home and then went to the doctor and sure enough, I partially tore my Achilles right there.
Eric: Yeah. ⁓ You know
Pedro: And it sucked because I was in so much pain the whole show, dude. was like ⁓ trying to hide it, you know, trying to look like you're up there, know, bobbing your head. But, you know, at that point, you're not really having fun. You're just trying to get through it.
Eric: ⁓ I bet. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, no, I've been through those. mean, talking about like stomach aches and shit like that. Like you've been on stage, like, you know, like you shouldn't have eaten what you should have eaten. It's already hot on stage. It's hot in the venue. You're moving your gear and then your stomach starts hurting. Yeah, everybody, everybody's had that happen to them. And it's like, it's. a scary feeling. And yeah, it's one of those times where you just like. You don't remember the show, you know you did a good show. Everybody said you were awesome and great, but it was just like push through. There's a lot of those times, man. It's wild. Yeah. ⁓
Pedro: Yeah. Yeah, like subconsciously, subconsciously, you're just looking at the finish line, like, God, like, I got 15 fucking songs to go and we just started. Yeah.
Eric: No, No, ⁓
Pedro: ⁓ yeah. You know, there's something about those shows that I like is like, you know, once you're about an hour in, sometimes when we play these local shows and we were like, you know, you guys open up for a bunch of national acts when they come through town, but about an hour in, sometimes I feel like I'm finally, finally getting to my groove and then the show's over, you know?
Eric: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's what that's that's that's with every ⁓ one of the bands we always say, like once you're three songs, four songs in, like you're feeling it and then you only have a 30 minute set. So you're done. And that's that is the that is the the the one thing I don't like about the local shows and like the opening ones and stuff like that, because you only have a certain amount of time. And it's understandable because, you know, the main act has. you know, an hour and a half and they're, you know, they're the main fucking act on either recording label out of town or whatever it is. But yeah, that's OK. I will admit that is one of the things that I do respect and a little jealous of, like when you get to do those three hour shows, because, like once that first hour hits, you're in it, you're locked, you're great. Like that's it's one reason why a lot of bands when they come off the road and they write an album, it always smokes.
Pedro: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: because like they've been in it and they've just been just pushing and pushing and writing and playing and like, you know, they're sharp and like there's a difference. Like is this I don't even know if we can go in right now or we just bullshit. OK, cool. OK, cool, because I know, I just start going at times. And so that's, know, one of the things that, you know, I love about like.
Pedro: They're sharp. Yeah, I set it to record as soon as my guest comes in, so I don't forget. No, go for it, bruh.
Eric: When you have somebody that's just been pushing and pushing and pushing like there's a difference of playing at home every day and playing live like three, four days in a row. it's you practice every day. You can put your headphones in and like, you know, I'm not putting any of that down because there's many musicians that have never played live that will just smoke me and every right. And just they are just fantastic musicians. ⁓
Pedro: ⁓ 100%.
Eric: instrumentalist is this whatever pronounce it like whatever it is like they're just really great rounded musicians but like when it comes to writing a unit and creating as a like a structure there's just something about three to seven dudes just huffing it for months and just killing it killing killing because If you play music live and you know it, but you kind of lock in when you've been doing it for so long and it's just like instant. And that's like with Switchblade, it's instant. Like we don't even have to practice for three months and we can play a live show. Perfect. But it's you have those people that have just been just killing it. I hearing that music opposed to like when a bunch of dudes just kind of get together over like recording this, recording that, recording this, recording that, sending to each other. Random tangent on that. But yeah, I mean, it's Like I don't know.
Pedro: I think, know, has put out two albums and a lot of people say, you know, the second album sounds really polished, like you guys really care of it, but the first album sounds like, like the energy was better. And that's because, because we recorded it live. It was whole band in the studio, one, two, three, go. we just played everything, you know, we had a click to our ears, but even then... ⁓ We only had this click. There's song in particular, like it changes tempo so much. There was like, it's just going no click. Let's just go based on feel. And there's something about, like you said, when those guys, everybody just locks in and you guys are synced ⁓ and just full throttle ahead, man. That's something else. ⁓ That's capturing like lightning on the bottle almost.
Eric: It is. mean, and that's one thing I do like about like the first Switchblade album was recorded live in a way like that. And the second one was was actually the second one was was done kind of that way, too. But I think with with a lot of the problem, not the problems, but the aspects of the first album situation with any band is like you're a very raw band looking to cut your name and trying to get your place. very rare that a lot of bands like I think for me like I have a huge breadth of music but I have a nice like for me Pantera was one of the ones that got ⁓ more aggressive they went is they just kept pushing pushing pushing pushing and you got a band like fairness who I Absolutely love they started insane and then they just kind of brought it down a little bit more and it seems like a lot of bands have done that
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: Metallica is one, know, Metallica is one of the greatest. They've done that. Even Led Zeppelin. It's lot of that first angst of that release. Like you want to prove yourself and push something. And then when you have the second release, you either have the two options. You either got signed and you have a backing of a record label pushing you to get something done. So you need to push it. or you're like us and we just get to do whatever we want to do and we're kind of relaxed. The great thing about being relaxed is we have a lot more options of what we want to create sonically. We don't have somebody like pushing us. The bad thing about that is we kind of lose some of that angst. We kind of lose some of that aggression. And I've seen it with a lot of bands. I mean, but also like genre depending too. Like if you're playing like extreme gore. ⁓ slam death like it's every album's extreme score slam death but if you know if you're if you're like bands like y'all or like you know like switchblade like we we always wanted to create different or different structures different like things like ⁓ 100 like that's one thing i loved about like you know pink floyd you know there's a whole breadth of pink floyd to listen to baroness is the same mastodon is the same
Pedro: kind of explore within the sandbox kind of thing.
Eric: Like there's this whole thing. I love that. Even like, you know, you have the middle stage of Macedon where they're like, the sky where they still have a little bit Leviathan. They're still now they're getting their more King Crimson really out kind of look. It's, great. Like I love that. But then like with throat locus, it's a very focused situation. Like this is what we're doing.
Pedro: Yeah, Macedon for sure.
Eric: this is what we're after and this is what we're going for. And everybody is pretty much on the same page. Everybody's got their solid input on what they feel everything needs to go, which I love. So it's cool to have these two different scenarios. Like one, we do whatever the hell we want to. The other one, let's focus on what we're gonna do.
Pedro: I see behind you got the amps. That's the lany behind you,
Eric: Yeah, that's a Laney and over a Marshall I'm fixing. have main amp is a VHT Pitbull. I have a Crank Rev. That was my dad's. Then I have a Yamaha Saldana, which is a T100. Then ⁓ my 71 and then an ⁓ 85 and other office room area. I got way too many amps, but I mean, it's cool to have a bunch of
Pedro: Nice.
Eric: things to layer with, like each album that I've ever done. I have two different, three different amps on it, three different pedals. I like to layer in structure. It's fun that way. get a of different tones. ⁓
Pedro: Absolutely. I did too. I did too. I think there's so much like real estate, you know, like, and you mix you get to cover as much as that real estate. And sometimes you have to, you know, tone something down or you have three or four different tones. Okay. Maybe you have to cut this one or this one, but at least you have the options to, to mix it.
Eric: ⁓ yeah, one of like, I love the IR situations right now. IRs are killer, I use them for a couple of demos or just home. Like Alex, like we mean for, with Throat Locust, me and him send tracks back and forth, but I still want them to sound good. And ⁓ like, pick a couple of IRs. Gil will write some drums and he'll send them to me and we'll go back and forth. But when it comes to like recording recording, I like the real thing personally.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Eric: So with the option situations, one of my favorite thing to do is when Locust recorded the last single, had Brian, he a one of my amps or ⁓ most of my cabs, mix speakers ⁓ because frequencies like when have just all the same four speakers, you're just hitting those frequencies. When you have when you have something that hits mids lows, something that pushes, you know, you know, or actually cuts your lows and mids. Like you kind of have this nice little breath of like sonic kind of push. And it's cool because anybody that's ever tried my cabs like, wow, these things don't really good. And so with that, with Brian, I had him do an SM57 on the V30 and a condenser on the K85. And so when we recorded, he could blend both of those, see what what he needed more. And then after that, doubled it with a completely different amp. So then he had four tracks of two amps with like so many possibilities. He can mix and like, okay, well, the bass has taken a little bit too much. Let's do the amp that has a little bit more mids and highs to cut over. And then with solos, I think I did just two different amps so he could pick from. But like those options are great to have because
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: When you get into a studio situation, you're like, okay, my amp is my amp and I want my sound to be like this and it's going to be amazing. And well, the problem that people don't understand is a lot of the lot of it comes down to your speaker and your microphone. And so let's say they have a microphone, but it's old ⁓ the are old or whatever. This is this, this is that. Like if you just limit yourself to just this, just this, just this, let's roll. You're going to be missing a frequency you're wanting to hear that's one of these things don't capture. So always like.
Pedro: up sounding thin.
Eric: It always ends up sounding thin. I quad track by my guitars, all of them. You don't have to use all four tracks. Like you don't have to, four different tracks and so many different speakers, well, I'm sorry, I double track my guitars with four different channels for two different speaker combinations. And so with that, you those options to choose. And if you give the engineer that option, they're gonna love you a lot more because
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: Now they have all these frequencies that they can adjust to and choose from this and then like send you this like, hey, what do you think about this? I'm like, I like this, but can you add more low end? Well, it's hard to just add low end without changing the whole EQ curve. So if your other speaker has a little bit more low end, they can just blend that into it a little bit more. Like a Mark, well, I was gonna say Marshall's are real boxy. Like they have a ha ha ha.
Pedro: Yeah. That's nice. Good.
Eric: kind of mids when you do that mixing, you can mix it up to like if you're wanting that more slayer tone or if you're wanting a more AC-DC tone out of the exact same amp. That's why like JCM800 say, fun facts, all amps are the fucking same. I was talking to Brian about this too. If you ever have a chance, ask him about muffins. ⁓ know Brian at Guitar Center. This my analogy of it and he laughed about it. But all amps are pretty much the same. and then you have like, you know, your JCM 800, which is like the mid ground of all of it, right? So that's why a JCM 800 can sound like ACDC, can sound like Slayer, can sound like Led Zeppelin, can sound like whoever is because of the speaker that is being used for that amp. also ohms matter too, because 16 ohms are going to be a more open, broader tone and eight ohms are a tighter tone. That's why The whole coveted new metal tone is a Mesa V30 It's an 8 ohm V30 and a Mesa cab that is sealed so you can get any cab you want Sorry, my nose is itching. You can get any cab you want make sure it's sealed that you can kind of control that low end put some mid 2000s V30 8 ohms and then that's that exact corn God smack the
Pedro: Hmm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Eric: What's his name? Mark Tramonte. Ultra Bridge. Yeah, I agree dude like his his his it's crazy and everybody laughs but his Mesa Bogey dual rect tone is like one of the best. It is class it. He knows tone and so like a lot of people they go after that and they're trying to just like throw whatever they want but they don't stop to think about speakers and the ohms that the speakers are used for.
Pedro: Yeah. Alter Bridge Creed. He knows tone, dude.
Eric: It's all reasons.
Pedro: Yeah, he's got, he actually has his signature amplifier. He released like a ⁓ watt version of it, which is super loud. Yeah, which is super loud for a 15, but he also released a hundred watt at the MT-100. ⁓ I eventually I'm going to get one because I love that amp. Like it's so, there's three channels, so versatile. And like I said, he took the, he took the best parts of his favorite amps. think like,
Eric: The MT-15 right? That's what I'm here to go.
Pedro: He took like an ubershaw and then he took I forget all the amps that he took but there's plenty of videos on YouTube you can watch you can see exactly what part of which amp he took Lately he's got his hands on a dumbbell and he loves that thing too ⁓
Eric: Dumbbells are great. Well, mean, that's that I think Dumbbells might be one of the few that is par for the course of it all. But like he's able to do that because all amps are the same. They are, man. And so all amps, all guitar amps started from the RCA book back in like the 40s. Right. so Fender made their amp out of that one. And Marshall made their version out of that, out of that Fender. Right. And so you have these two, you know, American and European builds. They're kind of going left and left, you know.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: bouncing from each other and they just kind of build and build and build. Well, that's when Randall Smith ⁓ Mesa Boogie comes in and he got, ⁓ I remember which, which Princeton, vendor. And so he started, you know, modding those and that became the Mark series. Well, Soldano is actually a modded, modded Marshall. It's a modded Mark two or Mark And so you have this, this heavy game, Soldano coming from this vendor heritage. then everything else has copied off of that. The 51 50, the Mesa boogie, all of those were copied from, you know, that Soldano from that original Mesa. It's just this whole, everybody just copies everybody. So he's able to take, he's able to take the diesel part. He's able to take the Mesa part. He's able to take that. And it's, it's literally just like a few different type of.
Pedro: Yeah.
Eric: cathode capacitor adjustments just couple of different tricks. I I saw the breakdown of a modded or it's the Freeman ⁓ Cali amp. like a $4,000 amp. ⁓ It's literally a Marshall JMP with switches, bells and whistles. Like there's nothing, there's like, these things aren't. ⁓ rocket science. It's literally I mean, I saw it's comparable to a big muff almost like how the way the gain stages and everything reacts. Everything is the same. It's crazy. It makes me laugh. So like when I see no 3000 $4000 amps and people like, you know, I want to grab them like hell yeah dude, you go fucking grab that I got my VHT because it was I got my VHT for 1200 bucks. It's only reason I got the VHT I bought it was during COVID. I bought an angle
Pedro: Yeah.
Eric: like a solid price. I love that eagle. I bought it for like 900 bucks. The eagle was amazing, but it didn't have enough mids for, for throat locus. I mean for, not for, for switchblade because I guess switchblade is real loud mid, know, pushing. I didn't have a throat locus yet before the sale. So I it sale ⁓ and met a buddy. He's a good buddy of mine now. ⁓ And he picked that And with that cash, I went and bought a VHT.
Pedro: Mm. That's a good point, ⁓
Eric: on reverb like that same day. And that's just what I've been using. But yeah, like everybody's like, oh my God, you got a VHC. I'm like, yeah, dude. But I would probably play, you know, EVH Iconic if I didn't have it. It's the same, it's all the same shit. Alex has an EVH Iconic, the 80 watt one. I think it sounds amazing. He has an EQ in the, oh, he might've taken that out now. He used to have an EQ in the loop. And when you put an EQ in the loop,
Pedro: ⁓ nice.
Eric: With any amp, you can really adjust how the power amp section hits. And so he's able to shape it and he got it close to the VHD. I mean like real damn close.
Pedro: That's nice. You know what amp I really liked? I owned it for a long time. It was the ⁓ to Tweaker series. It was an 88 one. That amp was great. ⁓
Eric: ⁓ yeah. Why don't you look into the Synergy then? It's it's, Eggnator is one of the people that helped divide like amps is, is the Eggnator whole module like prophecy thing that you did, but it's designed by Friat of VHT. Like VHT is one of the best power sections ever. I will go down and in arguments with that. can. I am telling you, if anybody ever like sits, if anybody ever has a chance to sit down with like the old classic, it's this big chrome or big purple power section. It is like it. ⁓
Pedro: Hehehehehe And for people that are watching right now and you're like, how come this fucking guy knows so much about amps? Because that's like, ⁓ literally grew up tinkering with amps and tinkering with shit, right? It's like self-taught. And you just taught yourself how to do all that stuff throughout the years.
Eric: Hmm? Yeah, I grew up like my dad he he pretty much got me because my dad used to race Moto GP and so he used to race the CMRA and so he he always had like Sport bikes and super bikes in the in the garage and he's always tinkering and messing them. I remember one year like he took out all the bolts Just just we he just took apart the engine everything with titanium ones that could you know, we're titanium titanium worked and was beneficial. like we were always just doing that. And I remember he got an old Charvel, he stripped it down and spray painted it. And then like, I'm watching him and he gets me these like little RC cars from Snap-on and I'm like taking the wheels off and change them and breaking shit. He's like, I stopped at those things from Snap-on and really expensive because Snap-on is stupid expensive. And so like it was just always growing up in that kind of household or just tearing things apart. yeah, for ⁓ this stuff, it was for Frost Giant. It was I had a rat pedal and it broke on me. so I'm I don't like I mean, this was 2015 ⁓ or So I was I was working as a screen printer, so I really didn't have a ton of cash. Yeah. And so I
Pedro: I do. I remember that
Eric: ⁓ yeah, we've known each other at least since what, like 2010?
Pedro: ⁓ yeah, dude, for a while now. Yeah.
Eric: Roughly right? Yeah. It was like 2015 I was working as a
Pedro: I think you might have done some shirts for Rez. I think I remember going to your house and picking up a box of shirts for Rez.
Eric: think I did. Yeah, I'm pretty positive I did. actually did a lot of screen printing out of my house. And so I forgot about that. And time flies when you're getting old. And so, yeah, I didn't really a ton of cash on my shit. I can just figure this out. It's not rocket science like any of the everything is. Everything is fixable. Like I think the only time I'm ever like ever worried about something is like when I have to work on my car because I'm like, this has to get me from here to here. Don't fuck up.
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, stakes are higher.
Eric: And like, you know, replacing. Yeah, like replacing mission coils and all that kind of stuff. I'm like, all right, let's do it. And so like it's always like knock on plywood or whatever fiber wood that is. But yeah, so like I was like, screw it. I can I can fix it. And so in that meantime, I was like, well, let me just order a backup. So I have a backup for this. So I fixed it up. I'm playing. I'm like, all right, cool. Hell, yeah. You know, I don't I don't suck. And nothing blew up. so the other one comes in and they sound different. I'm like, well, why do they sound different? They're the exact same pedal. Like nothing, nothing different. I open the insides to all the same. They look the same except like the colors of resistors or capacitors are different from different ⁓ brands and like that. But any electronics. What the value is matters, not the color of it, not the brand. I mean, unless you're getting into like really cheap brand of capacitors, that does matter, but that's a whole different story. Like it's the value of it. That's what matters. And so. I'm trying to figure out what's going on. I picked up this one book is by Jack Orman. And it's like this this old, old school ⁓ guide of of like, rebuilding ⁓ mods and stuff. It's really cool book. And he starts talking about drifting and what the fuck is drifting. And so I found out that like, you know, the certain type ⁓ of called carbon, they drift. And that means the value changes over time. That's why like old electronics like People tag me into fixing their home stereo stuff. I'm am not touching that. Because everything is old resistors. You gotta replace because it's all drifted and it's bad. And it's just like, no. God, no. So that's why I started learning about that. And so it was like this rabbit hole of like, okay, well, why does it do that? Okay, well, why that affect that? Why should matter?
Pedro: you
Eric: And okay, well, what happens if I do this? it was just this constant thing of like figuring out what do of a to make it awesome and not blow up. And I blew up a lot, dude. I mean, it's hilarious when a capacitor goes, like there's these, what are they? little of electrolytic capacitors, they're filled with fluid and foil. And when put them on the wrong polarity, they pop and it's like a firecracker, dude. And it's smoke everywhere. It is fun as hell. And so when I first started Frostshine, it was just me in the bedroom and it's literally my bed. And I have this craftsman work.
Pedro: ⁓ shit.
Eric: like this this little red cart. I flipped the top one over. So now it's a flat. And so I'm building pedals on there. It's shit. It's like eight eight at night. She's watching TV trying to go to bed. It's like, smoke everywhere and like sparks. I turn around. Do I turn around like that? That kind of hamster that like that real quick. And she's like, What are you doing? Like, are you okay? She's like, Yeah, are you okay? Like, Yeah, sorry about that. So like, yeah, you blister.
Pedro: So, so like, how do you, so how do you go from like, yeah, I'm building these, I'm doing all these by myself, but I think I can like escalate this and scale it to a business. when did that, when was that a aha moment for you?
Eric: That was like an accident moment. So what happened was is I'm building masses, right? And like the reason why I built a massive pedal in the first place was it was a tone that I was after by a band called Slomatics. And they have this video, it's called Live at Belfast recording, or practice space. it's, if you have a chance, listen to it and you'll go, and that video, And that tone me on my path, right? Like that's the whole reason I'm like, okay, ⁓ love ⁓ sludge metal because of this tone. And cool because I use my pedal now, but yeah, yeah, it's cool. And so they had this pedal called a Meathead. And what a Meathead is, the 70s, the 70s clone of, or this clone of a 70s color sound one knob. And it's just this big, massive, mean, ugly fuzz, right?
Pedro: ⁓ that's sick as hell.
Eric: This is still me working at a print, you know, well now I'm not working at a print shop. I'm not just printing out of my house. So I still got a little bit of extra money, but not much. And this is before like I'm building pedals. I'm still just repairing them, right? And I think, man, I really want that pedal, but I can't afford it because it's a UK made pedal from a damn machines and they're just the most beautiful things ever. And it's like 300 or 400 bucks. And I'm I can never afford that. I can never afford that. So let me see if I can build one that's for me. Like not clone it, but let me see what it is. So I found the schematics. I found the schematics of the one knob. I'm like, ⁓ shit, he's just changing a few things. He's not, it's not anything like he's like, holy shit, building this, this of a pedal. He's literally just changing things.
Pedro: Here. Nothing novel. It was like tinkering with stuff.
Eric: Exactly. So I'm like, I'm remembering, you know, when I was messing with the rats and things drifting and things, I'm like, okay, so changes things. Okay. does change thing? Why does that add this and that that? And so what I did ⁓ is I a board and I put all sockets on it. Right. And so sockets, you know, it's just, I can't see it, but they're just like little, little pins and got socketed would socketed, not the power section, not any kind of switching thing, but like the inputs, the way the hit the transistors, all that ⁓ socketed. So I built a one knob fuzz. I was like, okay, cool, this thing sounds great. Then I built ⁓ meathead. was like, okay, cool, this thing sounds like video, but it doesn't sound exactly like the video. Why doesn't it sound like the video? Well, it's because they're using that pedal through a 70s mad amp and they're just like fuzz upon fuzz. I was like, okay, so I need to get more fuzz out of mine, but I need to make it tighter because ⁓ this tightness to it because of that amp.
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: Long winded, sorry. So it was just me tinkering with things trying to figure it out until I found out what it was. I was like, okay, cool. I like this. This sounds great. I'm gonna roll with this. And I started playing it. I put out a couple of videos that sounded good. I made three of them. I put them on Facebook. Three dudes like, hey, that's pretty fucking awesome. How much you want? was like 99 bucks. I was like, okay, cool. I'll buy them. And so those three sold. Used that money to buy more cases and then put more into.
Pedro: No, you can't.
Eric: to pedal. was like, okay, cool. Let's let's make a couple of masses. When my second pedal broke, because I'm on gear, I've I've fixed my my I have a cowboys from hell wall. It's that you know, the the camel and you've seen it before. I fixed that thing five times easily. I'm really like stomp on my gear. I used to do a stupid thing where I would like I would sit on my wall with one foot. and just rock back and forth like a fucking flamingo. yeah, and yeah, everybody. Yeah, it's fun as fuck. But like it's hard on your gear. And so and like I would like I'd be turned to John playing and I would hit my pedalboard with my with the heel of my foot to make it all dramatic and cool. I was into the band called The Shrine. And if you don't The Shrine, check out The Shrine. It's like two dudes or one dude pretty much. And he's just insane. Anyways.
Pedro: do that. ⁓ Yes.
Eric: So it was like, know, I've got the Massive out, a couple people are digging it, I've broken my rat pedal, let's build a rat pedal. And so I built the mountain and I put it out and two people were like, I want that. I was like, okay, cool, so I built two more, sent out, one guy did a demo, people are like, holy shit, that thing sounds great, what did you do? I was like, well, I just built it the way I feel it should be. I made a white face rat, is, I hate the names after white face and black face, it sounds so back at, back woods, it really does. But it's just, the printing on it, like if there's a whole white square or a black square, it's ridiculous. But it's, the white face rat is like the Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd 80s rat, and then the 90s rat is a little bit more aggressive. So it just kind of.
Pedro: Yes. Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric: made my little adjustments of that. And then I gave it bunch of bells and whistles and it just started ticking off. So I started doing those what really happened was the case was called Mammoth, Mammoth Enclosures. They were cool, except they really weren't. So like they get their shit together at all. So I ordered a case and it was pre-drilled. This is where I my drill.
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: It get here. Wrong case. I hit him up. I was like, hey, you guys sent me the wrong case. OK, hold on. Send me another one. was like, dude, still wrong case. So seriously, this happened four times, right? the fourth time I was like, you guys would just drive me insane. I have people waiting. I didn't have people, but I was like, I got people waiting like I felt like fucking prince again. Like I'm you know, Mr. Fucking impressive. I was like, I got people waiting for him and I need him now. So he's like, all right. I don't know what the whole fucking deal is, but hold on. So I get a box with five cases in it. They're all wrong. I hit him up. I was like, I got the picture off the website. I like, this is what I ordered. And I sent him all the picture of all the cases like, and this is what you keep sending me. He's like, ⁓ not one of them is like whole. was a holy shit. Hold on. And apparently they had the wrong order number on the website.
Pedro: Not one of them. Right.
Eric: So I kept ordering the wrong one, even though the picture was the one. Yeah. So this whole thing. So I was like, send me. I was like, send me.
Pedro: like the product number was wrong.
Eric: On the website. Yeah, so the picture was what was right, but the product number. Yeah, yeah, because they had like the product number here, but above you saw the product number again under the one that they kept sending me. OK, so I was like, yeah, I was like, send me a return label. I'll send all these trees like not man. You just keep them. I'm sorry. I was like, that's OK. I just want the right one. He's like, no, I've already got it sent in the right one. Finally comes in. I was like, thank you. But then I got like.
Pedro: What you wanted, the number was something else and they kept sending you something else. Yeah. I'm following.
Eric: seven of these cases. I'm like, the hell am I going to do with these? I was like, well, guess we'll make custom mountains. And so I made a bunch of mountains with some new knobs and fun looking those. Yeah. And yeah, because I wasn't I wasn't powder coating at that time. What I would do is I would do a base coat. I'd put it in. I went and bought these little toaster ovens. I put it in a toaster oven because you don't want to put spray painting your own. It's very, very bad.
Pedro: I remember that because you would post them on Facebook.
Eric: leaks the chemicals gets in your oven, but you can actually cook paint into the metal like to make it a little bit stronger. So you get a toaster oven. put it like 400 degrees. You spray paint it, put in the toaster oven, close it. You get the big ones, right? And cooks that ⁓ that into the metal. So it's not like it's powder coating, but you could drop it and it's not going to like chip off. It actually have three of them.
Pedro: you
Eric: two of them here, two blue ones that I did like that. They're still looking great and they've been in a box banging around. So it's actually it works pretty well. So the first ones I had, was like two or three blue ones and two or three like metallic green ones. You know, just cook them and send them out and people are enjoying them. And so then I got with Mammoth, was like, Hey, y'all do custom printing? We're like, yeah, you know, what are you thinking about? I like, I sent them the artwork for the mountain for the massive. it just kind of snowballed after that. And it was just me just making pedals and just I am now. Like I have a whole stack of pedals hanging out. I it. ⁓ It's most random. It's really the most random fucking thing ever. Like I, I'm fortunate I
Pedro: That's awesome. That's awesome.
Eric: can hear tones well and I have a decent ear for what sounds good because everybody seems to like the pedals I put out and it's just wild. It really is because I mean, I never at any point thought I was like, I'm going to build guitar pedals or like I was like, there's this joke. It's it's you either become a famous musician or die as a pedal builder. And I guess, I guess I'm still trying to, trying to, trying to that, uh,
Pedro: Hehehehehe
Eric: That famous musician part, so give me a while. I told him I will. No, no, we're gonna say.
Pedro: That's hilarious. like what the go ahead, go ahead, finish it. Now it's like, so like, so you've, you've made the, the mountain. It's like, what is your philosophy behind like, okay, what do I do next? And what am I going to do different? Cause you have different pedals now.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. mean, main goal is never to create a clone, really. Like, ⁓ go with your own designs. Like, the recent ones that I'm really proud of is the Architect of Reality, which is the preamp section of the 85 Lany that I have, which is like a doom metal amp, but it's also used for rat and ⁓ like ⁓ ⁓ like metal stuff. And then the Eidolon, which is a reverb delay boost pedal. one was actually designed by Electronic Audio first, and then I got it and then put my adjustments on it. I had help with the guy that helped me design the architect, because the thing about all this is I'm not an electrical engineer. didn't go to school for any of this. And so like, I understand more than the basic of it, but there's like some parts of it that I do need help with. I can read upon and read upon as much as I want, but I'm a hands-on kind of person. I have a buddy who's a Nick at Dunwich Amplification, ⁓ he's the one that really put that architect together. And so because of him doing that and me learning off that pedal, I've learned a lot more, and I'm able to build my own stuff without worrying, like, is he going to do this? Am I going to be wasting money with prototypes? I can just nail it out.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: get the prototype in. Star and that one like everybody has a boost pedal that they love and it's usually like like a tube screamer everybody's got a tube screamer right and when put out an overdrive it's usually like a tube screamer clone and everybody's like okay well it's just a different version of a tube screamer technically yeah that's true ⁓ because the screamer the boss SD I mean, I love JHS pedals. JHS is amazing, but they're all clones of pedals except for a couple of different ones. And so like you are approaching things as a new builder, in my opinion, like you need to come up with stuff that's not available, at the same time familiar. So with the Morningstar, I started with the chip and the clipping of the TS9. So like you have the heart of a pedal you're already familiar with. But instead of the tone section, I took that out and I replaced it with a three band active back EQ. And so what that EQ does is it really adjusts pitches and kind of helps. You have really try an active EQ to really know how it affects your tone and how sharp it hits. It's really an aggressive pedal. so with that, put a boost behind the volume knob so you like when you actually push the volume you get a lot more harmonics and a lot more aggression. it's almost like it's almost like a preamp instead of a volume. So as you're pushing it everything's going to be pushing. So with the Morningstar what I wanted to do is give you something that was familiar but a completely new take on it that you like it does it you know it's not a tube screamer. You know it's not an overdrive. It's not something that's just like, you know, adjust it here, change this. And like a lot of problems with lot of custom pedals and boutiques is like, they're just, there's just like a tube screamer with a bunch of extra switches and a blend knob. Like, ⁓ shit, you added a blend knob. That's cool. But like everybody does that. Like Lichlern is one that does like really, really cool stuff. He's out of somewhere. I can't remember, but he does like really cool things. He's putting noise gates, he's putting effects loops in his pedals, he's doing some really cool things. But like, when you come to these big box builders in a way, I don't want to name names because they're really great people and the ones I look up to, a lot of times it's just a tube screamer with a bunch of switches. So with me, I'm a small I need to create things that are, that are.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Eric: Familiar, but are outside the box. Like everybody keeps asking me, like, are you going to do an octave? But Michael, there's octave fuzzes all over the place. Everybody keeps asking me when I'm going to do amps and I'm not going to do it because there's a whole nother. There's a whole nother discussion of why I won't do amps. Like I love them, but it's just it's not. It's a consumer base on that. But it's you have to constantly create cool stuff that feels relative.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: to what you've had in a world of modelers. It's a hard thing right now. I I could tell you.
Pedro: I was gonna ask you about that. what is your you know, there's so many good ones now. There's a quad cortex, which I have the QC, a friend of mine's got the Fender Tone Master, I got another friend has got the camper. So like, I got I got another friend that's got the Oh my gosh, I'm blanking on the name now, but it's still the big one.
Eric: Hmm? Hmm? The line six one, the stage.
Pedro: There's there's that one. I mean, there's so many, right? Like, so what are your views on that one? Where do you stand?
Eric: I love them. I think they're great. mean, one of the cool ones is the Kemper player. Like you can actually throw pedals in with that one and it works well. Like there's pedals that work with these things. But, you know, the reality to a lot of this is, I mean, those, people that use those modeling systems are not really my demographic. And by that, mean, those are large touring stage musicians.
Pedro: Mm-hmm.
Eric: If we're going to be honest with demographic and people, my demographic is people like you and me home players and people buying pedals and trying things out ⁓ trying to find their tone and wanting to spend four grand on the modeler. The people that spend four grand on a modeler, they're not looking to stack bunch of pedals. They're just looking for a fly rig. They're looking for something easy. They're looking for ⁓ something that's dependable and reliable and something that I can take overseas. So with that, like the best thing for me to do is to get with somebody to, and I need to anyways, but I need to get my pedals modeled and I need to get them in that environment. And it's not because I need to get them in my environment to sell or anything like that. need to get them in the environment just so people can see them in that and people know my name more. Like I'm not expecting to be like, I'm going to sell a bunch of patches. ⁓ make money off of that because that's not that's not how it goes. It's just getting your name out more. So I mean, what?
Pedro: Sure. I think the fuzz too, it's from what I hear and from what I read, it's like the hardest thing to recreate in these modulators to get the fuzz right.
Eric: Yeah, because like a fuzz tone is so square wave glitch. You it to sound like shit in a way like you do. Like it needs to be that blown out, that fart sound almost right. ⁓ Modelers made for Gojira. They're made for for periphery. They're made for that that smooth, honest to God tone of like, you know.
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Right.
Eric: that sounds like Eddie Van Halen, then you hit a button and you sound like Mastodon. Like it's not really, it's not made for like Bongripper you know, any of these big doom metal bands ⁓ like the kids that are just starting out on the road ⁓ or just dudes pushing it every night. Like there's, I love there's still like, there's that, back in the eighties, there was this huge rock mentality, right? And everybody had these just massive just
Pedro: Right.
Eric: Eventide all these space racks, right? And then all of a sudden they all got moved to a pedal board. And you have these communities of people that have these pedal boards that are like the size of a Buick. And it's just like every and they're like, hold on, watch. And then they open it. And there's there's like, there's more, there's more underneath it. And everybody's like, why do you need that? He's like, I don't I love it. And like, that's why I got random Godzilla toys and tattoos and all that kind of stuff like
Pedro: Yeah. And then they open up more pedals underneath there. Yeah. you
Eric: Like I, people love it. Like I have, I have, I'm so fortunate that I have like a following of people that buy like there's, there's one dude out of Canada. His name's Frazier. I loved to death. He buys everyone, every pedal, each one of every, I have people that have collections of frost shines. I have people that proudly show off their collection of frost shines. And so like when
Pedro: That's awesome. And those are also, let me just give you props, dude. They look amazing.
Eric: very OCD, ADD and dyslexic. So I'm like a whole mix everything. So I have to like stop myself what I'm doing and double check everything and like go on a tangent and come back to it. And so like, I try to make sure everything looks like, I want it to be like, when you see one of my pedals, it's like, man, that guy must be made overseas. That's a whole huge company. And if you're like, ⁓ he's from Corpus like, like, yeah, they look
Pedro: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they really stand out.
Eric: good like yeah like everything has I want and then like a lot of it to like lot of people don't know a lot of my pedals I'm like they're not religious but they have a lot of that good and evil artwork in it there's a lot of old woodcut 17th century art in it there's stuff that I've had drawn into it like it's just this whole I don't know I really I'm really happy with the look of them I'm really I'm really happy about that.
Pedro: I think it's really hard too, right, for like an artist to like look at something and be like, man, I'm really satisfied with this.
Eric: ⁓ yeah, like the worst thing for me is designing a pedal. Like it seriously is because I don't think they're like, know my pedals are good and I know my customers are smart because they love them and have like these crazy setups. like, man, that's crazy. My pedal fits in your just mainframe of a pedal
Pedro: Yeah.
Eric: And like, ⁓ yes, one of the best things this and this and that. And so I'm very lucky to have that. It's it's a wild thing. But yeah, like take a lot of pride in. I take a lot of pride in the pedals. I took a lot of pride in the artwork. And the the problem with me is like, I don't ever think it's good enough until somebody finally tells me to stop. Like with the bass mountain, I had to give it to Chris or bases of Switchblade and just let him run through it. He's like, yep, this is good.
Pedro: Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Eric: You don't need to do anything more with the Morningstar. Dude, I sent that thing to Holt of Exodus. I sent it to Anthony of God's I sent it to a couple of demo dudes. I sent it to a bunch of players and I had them just play on it and tell me Ryan Fluff, Brian Bruce. I'm sorry. I was like, just me you don't like. They don't tell me what you like. Tell me what you don't like about it. And they got cards. I write it down.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: I need you to just flat out tell me what you hate about it. And that's what I changed. it seemed to work. And it wasn't anything that I thought that needed to be changed. It's just like, you need to change the EQ curve on this. ⁓ this is a little more aggressive than it should be. Hey, dude, this hits my DAW so hard. You need to back off on some of the decibels. And like.
Pedro: How did you out to those artists? Like, hey man, this is this is what I build. Can you try it? Like, how do you go about them?
Eric: I think it's the same way I go about meeting you and everybody else. just don't be a dick. ⁓ so, ⁓ so luckily like I've been fortunate ⁓ know a lot of musicians. Like fortunate to know like the guys in Kyle. Like those are always one of my favorite bands, Matt Pike of Iron Fire. Like a lot of these people like I've met either by mutual friends ⁓ and just but with like,
Pedro: Hmm. Hmm. Yeah.
Eric: Gary Holt, he reached out to me and we talked about a few things. I think it was about a cat video or something. It was randomness. He's great. so and Ryan Bruce, I met him through a mutual builder and just stayed in contact. And so what I try not to do is ask people for anything. ⁓ I offer them they want to check something out. I've always noticed that like when you. ⁓
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: When you friend somebody higher up in the hierarchy of whatever it is, when you start acting, I'm fortunate enough to know Sterling, he recorded a lot of the Pantera albums. Grady Champion, Dimes Tech, we talk on Facebook. It's because when I talk to these people, never fanboy and I never act like I never act like they mean anything to me in a way. Like I try not to be like, ⁓ my God, I'm so happy to finally meet you. You know, you've such a huge inspiration in my life. I'm sure they fucking heard that. They know that ⁓ one of the best examples is like the way the way I roll through life is my buddies ⁓ since I mutation playing with ⁓ Everclear at Sproosters. wanted make an announcement. I was like, OK, let's just go.
Pedro: Yeah. Sure. Yeah.
Eric: He's like, what do you mean? was like, well, you're Logan of whatever fucking station he was at at that time. Let's just go say you're going to make an announcement to announce a sensation on the thing. He's like, you think that'll work? I'm like, yeah, it'll work. Follow me. So we just walk and the guy's like, hey, I can help you. It's like, yeah, this is Logan. He needs to go do the announcements for sensation. We're in that back room. If you want me to go get them, I can go get them now or we can just deal with this however you want to deal with it. He's like, I got to make a call on the thing. I was like, that's cool. Make a call. I don't care. And I just waited and called. He's like, ⁓ okay. Yeah. Yeah. Go up there. Logan went up there. He announced some salutation. hung out backstage. I got things like it's if you just pretend you're there, you're going to be there. If you just pretend that you're supposed to be in that crowd, you're going to be in that crowd. But if you stick out with a sore thumb and you make yourself known and seen. Yeah. So like with all these, all these musician buddies and all these demo guys,
Pedro: Mmm.
Eric: I'm not asking them for anything. I'm not like, holy shit, I need you to check out my pedals because if you check out my pedal, you're gonna love it. It's gonna be the greatest thing you've ever heard, like every other fucking person online that does. You just be their friends. And then when it comes time to something like with the Morningstar, I'm like, hey, if you wanna check this out, cool, but I got this pedal I'm building out Ryan. I sent him Switchblade stuff ⁓ pedals. like, here you go. He's like, what's this for? Whatever. Do you want me a demo? I'm like, no. I don't need you to demo it. If you want to demo it, cool. Like we can figure it out later. OK, dude, thanks. Like, yeah, cool. Later. And that was it. ⁓ it's this mutual respect that you have to have for somebody. And then if you just pretend that you're there and you just act like you've always been there, you'll be surprised what happens. But if you act like a fangirl and blow your fucking load right on the front of the first announcement. Yeah. So I mean.
Pedro: Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: It's all about attitude and life really. And that's just really how I've done it. And so with all these demo dudes, all these people, it's just being a friend over time, showing them respect, commenting on things, liking things, having conversations with them, but never asking them and just being there. goes a long ways. ⁓ wild.
Pedro: That's awesome. You're talking about earlier, like you had this one pedal, but he also had this one pedal and they didn't sound the same, although they're supposed to be the same pedal. So how do you keep that from happening on your pedals? Like, how do you, how do you balance like hands on quality standards with like, like for example, you were having issues with the tariffs, right? You've, you've having to spend more money, having to do this, you have to do that. So how do you, how you keep yourself?
Eric: This worked for me. Hmm? Mm-mm.
Pedro: Not accountable in a way, but I guess accountable for to make sure that every every pedal sounds the same
Eric: I don't change what I do just because prices change. eat those tariffs and I eat everything. All my pedals made with a high standard of like a certain degree of allowed tolerance. And with allowed with parts, you have like a 5 % allowed tolerance, a 10 % allowed tolerance up to 25%. And so what that means is remember I said earlier than that number matters. Like if it's a 470K,
Pedro: Mm.
Eric: If you have 5 % tolerance, it's going to drift around there. Some will have a 25 % tolerance and those are like the carbon ones and those will drift a lot. So the main thing to do really is to go through your charts. And that's what I do. I have a place that I order and I go through all my charts and I look through the longevity of things. I look through the tolerances and I make sure that I get the top grade stuff ever, even though it's not always the cheapest. especially with the tariffs adding more because a lot of stuff like you can't get a lot of these parts in the United States and it's not because we don't want to make them it's because we don't have the regulations to make them we actually cannot make them because of CPA or FD not FDA but you know all those kind of I mean mean the pedals the fuzz pedals got beef but they ain't got that kind of beef but uh
Pedro: Mmm. Unless you want to eat them whatever. Ugh.
Eric: It's like you have all these regulations and you just, can't make a lot of things here. It's just it. When we changed in the seventies and we moved all our manufacturing overseas, like we put laws and regulations of things that would like. That's why, like you, see people in like like cities and stuff like boiling, circuit boards and pulling them and just like sitting outside and everybody's just boiling them and soldered.
Pedro: Hmm.
Eric: rehashing everything because they don't have those laws. They don't have these certain things where they in regulations and a lot of the materials can't be mined here. A lot of the materials like cobalt and stuff like that is mined over like lithium's here, but like a lot of that's overseas and we don't, we won't pay the money for it. Like we're used to a cheap economy right now. So I have to order the most clearance and stuff from Japan and Germany and Not Taiwan anymore, but a lot of ⁓ a lot of my parts like I use a lot of Panasonic capacitors and those are from Japan and then my worth capacitors are from Germany and then my Yago resistors are from Taiwan. No, yeah I think there might be from Taiwan have to double check but like you only have a place a certain place that makes these parts So it's either stick to a strict formula to make sure everybody gets exactly everything they ordered or start ordering cheap stuff off of Amazon and eBay. Like whatever resisters this and this and that, whoever has bulk and that, like a lot of people are doing. And I understand that, but you're gonna have quality issues. And a lot of people like, I'm repairing a lot of companies, dude. Like I get a lot of people that send me stuff like, can you repair this? Hey, I need you to adjust this. Hey, I just bought this off a reverb. This isn't working and the, builder's not responding to me. Can you do it since you're in the U S and so it's yeah, it's just, it's crazy. And it's, there's a lot of fake components now because of COVID. Like there's a lot of fake components. is wild, especially I see chips and most FETs and stuff like that.
Pedro: That sucks.
Eric: It's insane. So I mean, you have to spend the extra money, you have to spend the extra dime and time and just really just print out or go through all this tech sheets and make sure you get the best that you can and fork over the cash. Like I'm not raising prices. I still haven't raised prices. I can't. I can't raise prices in this economy. I mean, I'm selling a $200 preamp like that or the 240 is how much the AOR is. mean,
Pedro: bright.
Eric: That's that's a good chunk of change, especially if people are still making $7.50 an hour or $9 an hour or they bring it home $300 a week. That's a week's paycheck. So I cannot I cannot give them shit if they're if they're spending a week to buy a pedal for me. Can't I have to make sure that they get the best because I would be pissed like in and that's why. Well, that's why everything has a full warrant lifetime warranty of manufacturer things like if something happens.
Pedro: Yeah. Sure.
Eric: I will fix that right away or as fast as I can because I got a backlog right now. But yeah, it's it's it's crazy. It's crazy right now. It sucks, but it is what it is.
Pedro: So where do you see FrostGym electronics heading into the future? Let's say the next two to five years. Because you say you're still building out of home, right? So you want to expand the office? Do you want to go anything bigger? Do you want to keep exactly where it is? What is vision?
Eric: it's it we we The my goal is earthquake or I would like to be earthquake or devices. I would like to be somewhere that's in a bigger facility. Like at one point we had plans and we were about to move into a bigger facility and then just economic timing and situations that happened with ⁓ including tariffs. Like stopped a lot of that. So yeah, my goal is a large facility hiring as many people as I can. I would like to have a I would like to have a business where I can buy health insurance for people. Like, I want that. I wanna have a that has seven people building guitar pedals. Because like, if I can give somebody the opportunity to do what I do and make a living on it, geez dude, that'd be amazing. This is most ridiculous thing ever. Like, I get to stay home and build guitar pedals. Like, my wife, she lost, well they had to let her go and...
Pedro: Nice. Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: November so since November to now it's just been me taking care of everything with guitar pedals and ⁓ it's but we're able to make it work and I'm just like so fortunate that I can do this and I I can stay home and Be a little if I want to and and and and like cuz some you don't want to do anything and like I can actually like
Pedro: Hmm. Yeah.
Eric: this day I don't feel like doing anything and I won't. I'll jump on my computer and I'll do artwork or layouts or work on schematics or something else. So it's a beautiful thing. So if I can give somebody that opportunity, Jesus dude, that'd be amazing. the dream. That really is the dream. I want to have that here in town. And especially at school because when people like they actually check out the pedals, like, where are you from? I'm from Forkess. Really? Like, yeah. You build them in Corpus? Like, yeah. Not Austin? Like, no, Corpus. It's crazy, right? Who would have thought Corpus? And so I could give to give like, uh, another, uh, manufacturing thing out of this town. was just something kind of cool. I like, I like Corpus. I love this town. I mean, I have my issues. I got my issues with every town, but like, at least it's not Austin. If you've ever driven in, if you've ever driven it, mean, well, sorry.
Pedro: Yeah. Yeah, I do. Sure, yeah.
Eric: post 2005 Austin, at least it's not, know, post 2005 Austin. Like a beautiful town and it has a lot of possibilities. just, I don't know, change the thinking on how this town goes. ⁓ find us some water and that would be thing, you who needs that, right? It's just water.
Pedro: Yeah Yeah, let's fight us to water ⁓
Eric: Yeah, we'll figure that out later. Let's build pedals first and then we'll find out about water. I like that.
Pedro: Yes, let's get the priority straight. of pedals, so got to choose one of your pedals and that would be the pedal for you. Which one is that?
Eric: It'll always be the architect. Just because like that pedal is the one that I always wanted to make. Like wanted to, I love my Laney AOR so much. that was like, when I found that amp, I'm like, ⁓ that's what an amp says. Like this thing is just mean. It's just heavy. Like the clean is beautiful on it so I can put pedals into it. And that's the amp that got me into pedals really is because I went from my crank. I have a crank rev up like this and got that Laney and I'm like, okay, go through the clean channel because I was a big sword fan and iron fire. ⁓ my God, my brain, no, sleep, sorry, Matt Pike, sleep in and ⁓ fan. And they both use that Laney AOR. So I finally found one of my buddy Garrett found or Barrett found me one and it home and I was like, this is it. And so I've always wanted to create that sound. And so with that, like the AOR I feel is like that is our pedal. The mountain is what really started it. The mountain and the mass is what started this business. But the AORs, that's it. And everybody that's played it really loves that pedal. They really seem to take to it. I got a, I actually have all the pedal. I got most of them at Guitar Center right now. It's cool, they let me, they sent me up a glass.
Pedro: Man, I gotta check that pedal out. I haven't had a chance to play it. That is sick.
Eric: a column and they got all the pedals in there. And so there's a, have a limited white snow blind. It's all white graphics, white knobs. Go there and check that one out and just put it through a clean app and just go for it. It's loud. It's got a lot of game too. It's cause it's a preamp of a, of an amp. It's the actual preamp of an amp instead of tubes. I'm using a, a JFETs and just turn them up. But I mean, that's a whole nother talk by how those work.
Pedro: Do you have any funny or weird stories from customers that bought your pedals? Either on a gig, they told you something about a gig, that something went wrong or something went wrong, but it turned out to be right. Something specific about your pedals that you thought it was a wild story.
Eric: I've had I've had two ⁓ I mean there's there's there's there's a lot of them But two of my favorite ones one is from a band called toke and they played It was the locks Vegas Psycho and it was this really killer festival back in the day, right? And so they get to the venue all the amps are blown and so they don't have anything they're like freaking out but
Pedro: my god.
Eric: The guitarist I sent it to him or he purchased it. He had the solo pedal. He's like, dude, that's the only literally the only thing I had. And I plugged it into a fender that they had like combo or something like that. And he ripped it through and like it's like this crowd and it's just like 10,000 people. And it's just like, it's just wailing. He's like, here's your pedals. my God. It's amazing. And so that was rad. Another one was
Pedro: Holy shit.
Eric: I sent a pedal out because I get a lot of international orders and I sent a pedal. This guy hits me up. He's like, hey, this mass is not working. I was like, what do mean? It's not working. I test and that's the thing. Like all my pedals, I drill each case myself. I test each pedal myself. Everything is just everything is done by hand. So I'm like, what do you mean? It's not working. Like I tested it myself. I know it's working. He's like, no, it's it's just messed up. I don't understand. I was like, well, there's a trim pot on the inside that controls the fuzz. Maybe I didn't max it out. He's like, no, it's just not working. was like, well, open it up, push to make sure the trim is pushed. So he opens it up and he sends me back this abuse of abuse of email. And he is just like, I don't understand how the hell you could send this to me. And it's just this long, just just intense. like, what the fuck? And then it shows a picture all the. Like everything like all these little components and stuff like that were just pushed down pushed down and broke and I was like what the f- yeah I was like what whoa whoa whoa whoa what's going on and he showed that and then he showed me the box well the box had a bunch of red tape all over it and I was like I didn't put red tape on that box so they called UPS and apparently it got flagged for a bomb in their system
Pedro: Yeah. ⁓ my god.
Eric: So they took it all apart and they had like, I guess the squad or somebody pushed to it and to see if that it go and they pushed it and nothing happened. And then they realized it was a guitar pedal because they flipped over the box and it shows frostbite electronics and they went to the site. Yeah. So I got flagged as a bomb.
Pedro: Jesus fucking Christ.
Eric: So ⁓ he, yeah, and so he hits me up and he's like, yeah, I just got off. He sent me this this from UPS, this whole worded emails. Yeah, apparently they they flagged it as a bomb and they had to try to detonate it. That's what it was. And they tried to detonate it by pushing it into because what it was is here we go. Is one of these. ⁓
Pedro: That's one way to ignite a gig. Mmm.
Eric: And so these little resistors look like wire or wireless remotes. And so they thought that was like a wireless remote and they're pushing it to detonate and see if it would go. Yeah, it's insane. So that one was fun. But yeah, I mean, I get a lot of things like people like wearing boots and I don't have the pedals over there.
Pedro: That is cool.
Eric: He's playing and he comes down and hits the pedal, the case too hard and his boot goes right through the case. Like, cause he used the heel of his boot. Yeah. I was like a cowboy boot popped it down and the yeah. And there's a lot, dude, there's a lot. And the whole switch system, like just push through the case and just crack the whole thing.
Pedro: ⁓ shit. Cowboy doom, huh? Holy shit.
Eric: He's like, yeah, I didn't know what to do. It just all loud feedback. And like, I'm sure it was. You done broke the switch off the damn thing like you. They're aluminum cases. They can take a beating, but cowboy boots are thick, especially that heel. And when you come down, yeah, the ship break. Yeah.
Pedro: That's a late, well, we, we will have to schedule another talk to talk about cowboy doom and, and, and amps.
Eric: Oh, yes, I'll run. Yeah. Oh, cool. We'll talk about why I won't build guitar amps. It's this it's it's it's another hour and a half featuring itself. I love guitar amps, but man, yeah, I'll do that. I'll do the small gist. You're to buy a three thousand dollar mason bill year or a five hundred dollar fifty one fifty. You know what mean? You know what mean? You're going to look into a three thousand dollar model or a three thousand dollar
Pedro: Yeah.
Eric: super lead overdrive, even though the Saldana SLS are amazing. It's it's ⁓ of the world. Yeah, we can go into that. We can go to amp talks on the next one. I've got schematics and I'll blow your mind about how everything is pretty much the same. It all depends on speakers, mics, placements and stuff like that. You can get every tone you've ever looked for, especially with the EQ in the loop. And that's a whole whole another story. It's great.
Pedro: That's awesome, dude. Man, thank you so much. before I finish, I honestly, like legitimately, I've thought about going up to wherever is Mr. Agnator lives, Bruce, he does amp building classes. And I love that tweaker so much that I almost, almost like I looked into how much it would cost to fly up there just to go take that class. Because you pay for the class, you take the class, you build the amp and you bring the amp home. ⁓
Eric: Hmm? Do it. Yeah, you bring it. It's like and so with that client like, my God, he is he is like so he's really one of the mad scientists of the amp world.
Pedro: I am trying so hard to get him to come over here talk to me, man. I'm trying. I would love to have him. Love to have him.
Eric: It. That would be that would be amazing. As far as I know, I don't think he does too many interviews because I don't see that many on YouTube. But he's like, if you have a if you have a second check out the synergy system, that's his ethos is based off of that. And it's the whole because he did the the Randall MTS system where it was like the Randall amp. And I think the Kirk Hammett had one, too. And you could take out all these different modules and put them in and all that kind of stuff. That's him. Like that's that.
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, ⁓ shit.
Eric: That's, that's where a lot of it started. Well, it is.
Pedro: You know, we were talking about Tremonti earlier. He by their Synergy amps. Swear by it. Swear by it.
Eric: ⁓ yeah. Well, it's when you have to think about it like this, like you have you the core like the quad cortex and all those and those make those sounds right. And so all it is really in your is getting the right EQ adjustments ⁓ to make sound like that album. OK, so when you're when you have something like the Synergy system and you have all these different amp modules, You can pick and choose where you're doing these different kind of EQ curves, like how a Marshall is very mid-driven or a Mesa is very cut and stuff like that. And then you can now, you can choose your power section and that like, even though the rack systems have always been around and you've always had those options, like the power amp section is the most important. So when you can do like Mesa, like a dual rectifier and
Pedro: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric: Like an angle power section even if you wanted to go cheap and do like a solid state power section, you have these options now because originally like it's the preamp that matters of all the tones. So like when you, when you could only bit like by the big rack system and like this is the rack of this and you can only do that. Like you were so limited, but with the synergy system, you can just ⁓ this power section, try that and just really mix and match because
Pedro: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: It's really all the same, man. And so like when I hear people get like kind of weird about that system, like you like the quad cortex, it doesn't even have tubes in it. It just has an EQ curve. It just has this adjustment to it. What you're hearing is the IR because there's a there's a guy that does a video. It's the pod bean. Do you remember those red ones? It's a pod bean versus a quad cortex versus the line six. and they all sound the same. The only difference is the IR response. When the IR response and the IR response is the EQ curve and the IR response is the speaker, that's all that matters is the speaker and the mic. And so once you're able to adjust that to where you're at, you can get anything to sound whatever you want. So like with the Synergy systems, you have these options to make whatever you want and then fine tune it with your speaker setup. And then you have the perfect setup. There's, always so many random things.
Pedro: Yeah, I would love to own one of those. You know, I actually sold my previous amp to be able to afford the QC because I was just playing so many bands and I doing, couldn't afford have a bass amp, ⁓ a amp and all this pedals, like I couldn't do it. So I'd sold it to get the QC that way I would have these kind of one and all in one unit and just be really versatile. And another thing too is that I didn't want to...
Eric: Hmm? Hmm? Mm-mm.
Pedro: be taking and ahead ⁓ gigs anymore. ⁓
Eric: No. the is a beautiful fucking creation. I'm so glad that they have that thing. And that's what it's made for, for what you need it for. That's exactly what it's made for. when have so many tones that you have to cover and create, and you have so many different genres, or so many different approaches to music that you have to be able to knock out, your quad cortex is perfect. It's perfect. That's what it's meant for.
Pedro: Yeah. Yeah.
Eric: The the the the people that don't need a quad cortex are like the misfit cover band like they only play miss you know what I mean? Like or or even the Metallica like the like the early thrash is like the power trip and lot of the new guys are coming out. They just have that Marshall to and they sound exactly the same. They don't need a quad cortex unless they're flying out. But when you have somebody that needs to be a multi instrument
Pedro: Sure. ⁓
Eric: like, that needs to fill a bunch of space. Yeah, it's perfect for that. Like you can't, this whole weird tube amps versus modelers and like it's, they're the same. They're, they're, it's a tool. It's not, it's not the, amp that's going to make me sound good. I know that for damn sure. It's, it's, it's how I apply either my ears and my fingers to what we're using. Cause if you can't turn your knobs on your amp, then what's the point? Like that's, that's one thing that I always find like,
Pedro: Sure.
Eric: When see a bunch of bands go live and they got either like a solid state amp, like they'll hit House of Rock and they got like a solid state combo and I'll go up there like, man, you need to turn this down and adjust this. Well, why is like, cause you're in this different head space. You're not at your house anymore. You need to adjust your amp to this. And so, yeah, I mean, it's all the same. You just got to turn your knobs and figure it out. It's all EQs, man. It really is. It's, It's nothing like it's nothing magical. It's not hard surgery. It's just me. Hmm. That's how I feel about it. Yeah, I mean, in like with ⁓ The the only difference is feel really, and it depends on how you want to feel like if you just want to ⁓ at the front of the house and you're joining and you're ripping it. Cool. Fuck you do that. But if you want to feel the amp, if you want to be immersed in the tone. ⁓
Pedro: That's it. Yes.
Eric: a tube amp and fuzz pedals are the way to go. I mean, it's it's it's what the approach of how you want it to be for you personally. Like the the the audience will always get what the sound guy gets. You know what mean? Like unless you're you're playing in a pub, but if you're playing on like stages that we play, it's not really what we get to hear. Like the sound guy is going to adjust the the mids, the lows, the presence for the front of the house. So I mean.
Pedro: Right, yeah.
Eric: It's It's how ⁓
Pedro: I agree. Sure. Yeah, Stage volume and all that. And then he turns around and you turn it back up.
Eric: That's that's that's one of the fun things that I like with my old amps is a sound guys fucking hate me because bass amps, they all have the direct guys in the back and you got a direct one. Nope. You're to have to get out of my. Sorry about that. it. But yeah, next time we'll hit up and we'll talk about ants and all that good stuff. There's... I could ramble for years about this kind of stuff. not too sure if you got anything useful on this this interview, so I apologize if I just run my mouth.
Pedro: Yeah, man. ⁓ dude, a lot. And more about just conversation. ⁓ It necessarily have to be about a certain one thing, but you know a about a lot when it comes to music and amps and pedals. So this was beyond. I was from as you were talking. So thank you very much.
Eric: Yeah, yeah. Next time we can even talk about toys. I make toys. I can tell you how to make resin. Yeah, I used to have a 3D printer, but I do sculpting and molding and all that kind of stuff. I used to make toys for the pedals when they would come out. They'd all get at each individual like little monster. Yeah, make fun stuff. Yeah, yeah. I got useless knowledge to fill the sky.
Pedro: ⁓ shit. Yeah, yeah, That's sick, I don't know about useless. You're a mad tinker and a mad thinker, my friend.
Eric: Yeah, maybe. I appreciate you having me on.
Pedro: Alright guys, please, please, please, please go check out Eric, Frostjohn Electronics. Check out his music, throat locus, switchblade Jesus, all great stuff. Thank you once again, man. I appreciate your time.
Eric: Yeah, definitely was a blast. If you ever want to do it again, like I said, I'll waste your, I'll waste an hour and a half this time.
Pedro: ⁓ we will. There is no, again, there's no wasting time. was like a learning experience, Really, thank you.
Eric: pretty sure I got to do some crackle on some cases though. Maybe next time we can get into some crackling. I can show you how to do my crackle cases too. That's always fun. ⁓ ⁓ is the best. If I can get more people to buy crackling, that'd be good.
Pedro: fucking do it. Maybe next time we do it and I'll take my rig over there and I'll just take my camera and you can show my show right there.
Eric: Ooh! ⁓ Yeah, I mean also I don't mind driving over to your place too, I'm pretty easy. I mean it's just Portland, so it's not that fun. I Chris lives over there too, so I gotta go there. I get to hang out with you and Chris, I'm solid. That's perfect. Yeah. Awesome, bud. Yep, you have a good one.
Pedro: ⁓ there you go. There you go. We'll set up a date and we'll do that. Later, brother. Thank you.
